


These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)

by stacnmad



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Allusions To Psychopathy, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Courtroom Proceedings, Ed's dad is not a great guy, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Familial Abuse, Flashbacks, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Hearing Voices, His mom is a beautiful woman, Homophobic Slurs, I'm adding tags as I add chapters, I'm sorry for the cliffhanger Kay, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Malpractice - Extreme, Medical Mistreatment, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Murder, Period-Typical Homophobia, Poetic Depictions of Violence, Reference to Burn Injury, Reference to Head Injury, Reference to Self Harm (Zsasz's scars), Technical Premeditation, Torture, mlm author, references to the 50s being terrible, slight physical abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9638057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stacnmad/pseuds/stacnmad
Summary: It's 1956. Edward Nygma has a date to the first school dance of the year, no one has solved the mysterious disappearance of Thomas Dougherty, and the new kid in school looks like he came straight from 1926. Why is all of this happening, and how is it all related?((Find me on Tumblr at geleaousfandoms.tumblr.com!!!))





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multi-chapter thing that I have written, so I hope I didn't do too bad!

Edward Nygma was square, through and through, complete with the clunky peepers, perfectly combed hair, and sweaters with collared shirts. He wasn't very hip to the hep, as they say, and he was pretty smart for a 17 year old. It got him into trouble at Gotham Preparatory School. So when news that a rather popular jock, Tom Dougherty, had gone missing reached the school, he was understandably nervous. What if Tom's friends and teammates got angry; what if they came looking to blow off some steam? Of course, he was nervous for all of the wrong reasons.

Kristen Kringle, with her perfectly coiffed red hair and long swishy skirts, was Tom’s girlfriend at the time of his disappearance. She was more upset about the fact that Tom was missing, and more nervous that he wouldn’t come back. She couldn't turn to any of Tom’s friends, as they all solved their problems with obvious violence. So Kristen turned to Edward, the sweet boy from her chemistry class who had always been rather nice to her, and who never cared about the ‘easiest girl’. Kristen thought him sweet. They became lab partners, and then they became something more. Of course, ‘something more’ was going steady. They gave each other pecks on the cheek in the halls and always held hands when they could. It was a simple relationship. Kristen was still upset, nervous, and worried about Tom. They never talked about Tom, though. They both avoided the subject of the missing jock for their own reasons; bruises that never truly had faded and kisses that brought only sorrow.

There were greasers, each with their gangs. This was a high school in 1956, of course they had their greasers, their rebels. They were the only ones who were crazier than the jocks, and their leather was a point of pride. Some were more methodical, like Carmine Falcone. Some were a lot more reckless, like Salvatore Maroni. Both were feared and both had their own little groups among the several other greasers, the several other wannabes. Though, it never paid to call Barbara Keane and Tabitha Galavan wannabes. They weren't with Falcone or Maroni; they were their own group, dubbed ‘The Sirens’ by the gossiping masses. They were queens in their own right.

There was one boy that no one knew anything about. He'd arrived about a week after school started, and was in several of Ed's classes, including chemistry, anatomy, and his French class. He looked like he was born 30 years late while simultaneously being born 30 years too early. His hair stood up on end and stuck out all over the place, but he wore suits to school, which would've been less strange if they weren't extremely out of date. Everywhere he walked (really, he limped), whispers followed. He showed up right after Tom disappeared; did he have anything to do with that? The brave and the few told tales that this new kid had actually killed him. The ridiculous said that his mother was a witch and that he was just some spaz. Ed had heard all of these whispers, so he was eternally curious about the boy named Oswald Cobblepot.

~•~

Edward and Kristen had been going steady for a while when buzz about the homecoming dance started spreading through the school at lightning speed. Ed had naturally asked Kristen. He'd been a bit awkward about it, but she found his awkward charm endearing. Kristen had naturally accepted his invitation. They both declined to mention the vigil that would be taking place for Tom Dougherty at the homecoming game the night before the dance.

When his mother took him to the tailor to get a suit, Edward couldn't help but wonder about the new boy who wore suits every day. As the tailor was taking his measurements, he wondered if Oswald Cobblepot had a date to the dance, and he wondered if he'd wear a slightly fancier suit. Of course, all of this speculation was for naught if he didn't go. Ed was sure he would, though. From what he'd heard from the whispers and the outright gossip, Oswald wasn't someone to be messed with. Oswald would be someone to make the scene. Ed had heard that he'd faced off with Salvatore Maroni, and judging by the black eye he'd sported for a week, those rumors weren't just rumors. 

Edward first interacted with Oswald a few days after his suit fitting. He was studying quietly for a test he could pass in his sleep-/He’d thought of doing this ever since she came to school bruised/, no, no-when he heard a scuffling in the back corner of the library, where the autobiography section was housed. No one went back there; it was now used for other things besides research, and everyone knew it.  
Currently, it sounded like it was being used for what was either interrogation, intimidation, or both. Overwhelmed by curiosity, Edward wandered over to investigate. 

He found the new boy, Oswald, being held against a bookshelf (O-Z, ironically enough) by Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock. They were Gotham Prep’s star quarterback and top receiver, and Edward knew that Bullock was the team captain. This translated into the fact that they could get away with almost anything, which included apparently beating on the new kid for kicks. They had him pinned to the shelf by each arm, Jim on his right and Harvey on his left. The bright red of their letterman jackets was a sharp contrast to the dark purples of Oswald's suit. Everything about the three was some sort of contrast. Both Jim and Harvey had their legs pulled back, getting ready to nail Oswald in both of his shins at once. It was a move that Ed was tragically familiar with.

The occasions of Edward getting into these scuffles had lessened ever since he and Kristen became a thing. He supposed that Tom’s team didn't want to upset her any more than she was. They'd probably found another distraction in Oswald. A different distraction, a new distraction.

/It was a dark and stormy night, which was not a rare occurrence for the dull, gloomy municipal of Gotham./-No. Not now.

Edward shook the thought from his head, and cautiously approached the three young men. He supposed that his recent immunity from being beaten up by the jocks and the bulls made him brave. There was no other reason he could possibly so brave. 

Jim and Harvey were apparently stunned about the bravery coming from the usually meek boy, because they let Oswald go, and left the two of them alone in the autobiography section with a few wary glances towards Ed.

“Thank you. I suppose.” Oswald said, trying to brush the wrinkles out of his suit. Edward, in his trademark awkward curiosity, just stared at Oswald and forgot to speak. “Hello? Earth to…” Oswald trailed off, waiting for a response. 

“Oh, um… Edward Nygma.” He mumbled, taking more than a few seconds to respond. “I'm a bird, but I can't fly. What am I?” Ed rattled off the riddle before he knew what to do with himself. “A Penguin. You're...known as a penguin. That's what they call you. Everyone, really.”

/Everyone had always called him names, from ‘Crazy’ to ‘Riddleman’. They wouldn't call him names anymore./

“Well, I don't like being called that. I don't like that name.” Oswald retorted, interrupting Ed's thought and continuing to adjust his suit.

“That's noted, Oswald.” When the other boy looked shocked that Ed had known his real name, Ed began to explain himself and began to ramble. “People talk, and I listen. It almost never ends well for me when it goes the other way. You know of Kristen Kringle, right? The first time I asked her to the drive-in, she slapped my face.” Ed smiled at the memory. “She was still low about Tom, I suppose. But we're close, now. She's going to the dance with me. I suppose I just had to be patient-”

/Patience was key, of course. It was the essential key to the elaborate trap. This was his route. Everything was going to go perfectly. It had to./

Edward stopped in mid sentence, and he must've because Oswald had started to back away. “My mother will be wondering where I am. I'll..uh..see you around, Edward Nygma.”  
By the time Edward had tuned back in and shaken himself out of his daze, Oswald was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, ed might get some friends!! Congrats on my boy having a good time (also some advice for the reader: relish chapter 3)

Edward woke up the next morning from a dream that he couldn't quite remember.

/He had a cat once. It had to be similar./

It had been something about his cat he had when he was younger, Guillermo.

Edward’s bedroom was very ordinary, for all that happened to him. It was covered in shades of blue, with baby blue covers on his bed and sky blue paint on his walls. There was a bright blue record player player in the corner of his room opposite his bed and next to his closet door. His closet was full of secrets, as everyone's was. He had a lot of jazz records, such as Chet Baker and Frank Sinatra. Chet Baker and Frank Sinatra were his favorite jazz musicians. On his nightstand, he had 2 pictures of his family and him: his mother and him smiling over his 12th birthday cake, and his father and him on a fishing trip-He knew how to gut a fish. He knew what to do.-where Ed had caught his first fish. It was a rather bright and happy in contrast to his dark hair, dark eyes, and sometimes, his dark demeanor.

He rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes and began to get dressed. He pulled a dull green sweater over his head from the dresser at the foot of his bed and took his glasses from the nightstand. He placed the glasses on their usual place on the bridge of his nose and then headed downstairs for breakfast.

His mother had made scrambled eggs, which were Ed's favorite, which meant something was wrong. He sat in his spot at the round breakfast table and began to eat.

“Kristen called earlier. She woke up with a fever, and she won't be at school today!” His mother called from the kitchen, where she was making his fathers coffee. That was something wrong. Ed had a lab in chemistry today; who would be his lab partner?

“I’ll manage!” He shouted back, then ate the rest of his breakfast in a solemn silence. 

Edward was out the door and at the bus stop before his father came downstairs. He must've worked the night shift at the police station, or it must've been one of those days. When the bus came, he sat as close to the front as he could. The bus driver would see if someone tried to antagonize him here. If he was in the back, he could probably get close to killed without interruption. Ed had learned that the hard way.

Chemistry was Ed's first class of the day, so at least he could get through what was sure to be agony and then continue on through the rest of his day. As he got closer to the science wing, he heard the unmistakable sound of Sal Maroni’s voice.

“They say your ma’s a witch, Penguin.” Ed could hear the sneer in his voice, and he hid around the corner, too curious to truly run away. “Does that mean she taught her son some of her tricks?”

“Just because your mother is an Italian woman who can't cook doesn't give you the right to insult my mother, who is a perfectly lovely lady! And I don't like being called ‘penguin’!” The slight nasal of Oswald's retort was a somewhat familiar comfort, even though they had only talked to each other once before. 

“Don't you say that about my ma, Penguin!” The emphasis on the hated nickname revealed Maroni’s expanding anger. 

“Don't call me that!” He heard Oswald yell in an increasingly scratchy voice. It was almost immediately accompanied by the sound of a punch to the face. Edward was about to step in-/his bravery, his willingness to do this astounded even himself/-when a third voice joined the fray.

“Sal Maroni, get bent and go to hell! Why don't you leave Ozzie alone.” The click of high-heeled shoes and the almost audible flip of hair meant that the third person speaking was Barbara Keane. 

“But, Babs, he insulted my-”

“I don't care who he insulted, Salvatore.” Her voice contained more than a hint of disgust. Maroni's nicknames never tended to go over well with anyone. “You're going to leave him alone.”

Maroni began walking away with a huff, and his footsteps grew faint. When the seemed to be completely gone, Ed stepped out from around the corner. Barbara was tending to Oswald's eye as best she could. When Ed began approaching the two, she whipped around to confront the apparent stranger. “Who the hell are you?!” She yelled. Ed, understandably, was a bit frightened of her.

“I'm..I'm Edward Nygma. I'm Oswald's…” He carefully deliberated what he would say next. “...friend.” He nodded, deciding that that was the right word.

“I was joking! I know you, and you're with Kristen.” Barbara said, punching Ed in the shoulder teasingly, then watching the poor boy stumble. She shook her practically perfect blonde hair out of her face, in a gesture that contained more self confidence and sass than half of the school combined. “I didn't know you were Ozzie’s..friend, though.” She smiled, with just a hint of friendly mockery in her inflection.

Before Ed could come up with a rebuttal to her obvious teasing, Oswald spoke. “He is my friend, Barbara. Well, I talked to him once, and he stared into space after speaking for what seemed like forever about Kristen. He's nice.” With a quickly timed smile and a minuscule tilt of his head, he confirmed that Ed was indeed something close to his friend.

Ed returned with a smile of his own, appreciating Oswald's defense, even if it was a bit harsh. It wasn't biting and it wasn't truest meant to be antagonistic, and Ed was going to take what he could get.

“I'm usually lab partners with Kristen, except she's home sick. Oswald, would you like to be lab partners? You don't have to do the work, I'm sure I could do it on my own-” Ed started to talk, and rambled because he wasn't used to having someone that wasn't Kristen stay and talk and show kindness to him like this.

“I'm sure Ozzie would love to be your lab partner, Eddie.” Barbara interrupted, speaking for Oswald and knowing that she was right. She was, after all, keen to these sort of things.

“Barbara's right. I'll be your lab partner. I'm sure Kristen would be jealous.” Oswald said, with a short, almost uncomfortable laugh. His attempt at humor elicited a bit of a chuckle from Edward as well. He didn't know it, but Oswald was in the same boat as him. Neither of them were popular; neither of them were ‘in orbit’. While Barbara wasn't Oswald's girlfriend, she was currently one of his only true friends at this school. They stood in awkward silence for a few moments before Barbara broke the tension.

“Well, I'll see Ozzie at lunch, and perhaps you could join us! Without Kristen, you'll be miserable at a table with that bull, Jim Gordon.” She spoke Jim’s name with a venom that Ed was about to comment on when she began to speak again. “I'll see you both at lunch. Ta ta!” She waved her fingers towards the boys, then walked off with a turn and a click of her heels.

~•~

The chemistry lab had been rather easy, though it was entertaining. They tested the corrosiveness of pennies against different liquids. While Ed ended up doing most of the work, with Oswald occasionally offering a snarky comment about the penny, his classmates, or himself, he found himself having fun. It was different than working with Kristen. He found that the different wasn't so bad, and that this day wouldn't be so awful after all. He actually found himself looking forward to lunch, even though Kristen wouldn't be there. He'd still have someone to talk to, and the majority of the table wouldn't be eyeing him like they wanted to kill him.

/He'd kept his eye on Tom, he knew. He knew./

Ed was sitting in his English class, bored out of his mind. Lunch was next, and he had never really liked English anyways.

By the time the bell rang, Ed was so antsy to get to lunch that he sprang out of his seat. He hadn't even been up for a second before he was tripped into a desk, hitting his chin and biting his tongue. 

“Better watch where you're going, Nygma.” Edward got up and brushed himself off. He then turned around to face Jim Gordon and his smug face sitting in the desk that he'd just passed. He'd almost forgotten about Jim Gordon. He wished he could just will Jim Gordon out of existence, but that wasn't how the world worked.

Of course, their English teacher didn't notice this taking place. If she said anything, Jim could've just claimed it was an accident that he tripped Ed, and he would've been believed. Everyone believed the football star; everyone believed the king of the corral.

“Using my last name as an insult. Very...creative of you, Jim.” Talking back usually got Ed in trouble. He learned that the hard way; he learned to just take whatever he got and shut up about it. He attributed his bravery and nerve to insult Jim Gordon to the fact that he'd witnessed Oswald do the same to Sal Maroni and get away with only a single punch. Of course, there was no Barbara here to save him.

Ed's attitude must've shocked Jim as much as it shocked himself, because the jock just left the classroom with a huff and a glare. Edward let out the breath he didn't realize that he'd been holding, pondering why Jim just kept walking away. This sort of thing happened a lot, these days. Maybe Jim expected the wrath of one Kristen Kringle, and though she didn't look it, Ed knew she could give one hell of a slap.

/He knew Tom took this route; He’d kept his eye on him./

He shook his head to dismiss the thought, and headed to lunch.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RELISH CHAPTER THREE AND THE FIRST HALF OF CHAPTER FOUR, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE
> 
> Aka the boys grow closer

Edward Nygma ate a packed lunch every day. His mother always made sure it was placed in his backpack before he left for school. It was a constant in his life that he sometimes took for granted.

He found Barbara Keane and Oswald quickly enough in the crowded lunch room; it was pretty easy to spot Oswald's extremely modern hair and old fashioned suits and Barbara oozed a sort of tangible confidence that could probably be felt the next county over. They were sitting in the corner, away from all of the buzz of the jock table, which was on the complete other side of the room. Another girl was sitting with the two. Ed assumed it to be Tabitha Galavan; he'd heard about her and he'd heard about her and Barbara being the true queens of the school. She was truly fearless against any adversity that was against her, and she was admired for that. He made his way across the cafeteria and sat with the three of them.

“Hey, Ed. Barbara was just telling me about you.” Tabitha eyeballed him from across the table, accompanied by Barbara's intense gaze. “You're real gone for Kristen, aren't you. She's a nice girl, you know.”

“Yeah, I do care about-” 

Ed was immediately interrupted when Tabitha began to interrogate him again, the two girls continuing to give him what felt like lasers through their eyes. “She was real low about Tom. She still wore his jacket, even after he went missing. You know, there's been buzz that he's dead...she never believed it. Yet, she stopped wearing his jacket when you two started going steady. She must be really gone about you, too.” Tabitha finished with a smile.

/There. Was that the flash of a red letterman? Of Tom's red letterman? Or was he going crazy?/

Edward didn't respond to that and couldn't respond to that. He had made it a rule to not mention Tom, and that rule had no clauses. Under no circumstances was he supposed to talk about Tom, to think about Tom-

/He was crazy, even if he had seen him. He had decided to go through with this; anyone who decided to do what he was about to do would've been crazy./

“Don't be..intimidated by Barbara and Tabitha. They just like to pry.” Oswald spoke for the first time in this conversation. He'd been planning on just sitting at the table, picking at his food and observing his new friend. When he noticed Ed's obvious discomfort, he decided to do something. “They're real tight that way. They do everything together.” Oswald offered a smile, trying to ease the tension.

“What do you have for lunch, Eddie?” Barbara said, changing the subject. She acted oblivious to what just took place, but trying to distract Ed was what she was going for. Her effort didn't go unappreciated.

“My..um..my mother packed it. It's probably a ham sandwich and some carrots. Oh! And milk. We have those miniature cartons of milk by the crate, and we keep them in the garage.” Ed took a bit of time to answer, and once he started talking, he started rambling. He was nervous. He never did like talking or thinking about Tom, even before all of this happened. “I swear, my mother is absolutely cranked about milk. I guess it would be because she wants the family to be healthy, especially my dad, since he’s a policeman. Defending the town of Gotham is an important job for a man...” Ed continued, only trailing off when he ran out of things to say.

“Oh, I wouldn't say that defending Gotham should be left all to the men.” Barbara responded, smiling and almost daring the rest of them, especially Edward, to say something.

The four of them spent the rest of lunch talking about things and people that didn't matter. When the bell rang shrilly, Barbara and Tabitha hopped right up and joined the mass of students heading towards their next classes. The two boys decided to wait; Edward so that he wouldn't risk running into the football team, and Oswald so that his leg wouldn't be subject to the need to hurry through a throng of people.

Soon, the crowd thinned out, but the two didn't feel the need to get to their French class.

“Thank you. For earlier.” Edward said, after a minute of silence. He didn't mention the specific incident, but Oswald knew.

“It wasn't a problem. Really, Ed, I couldn't let a friend just flounder like that.” Oswald spoke quietly, even in the silence, as if having and helping a friend was something intimate. He offered a smile, to demonstrate his sincerity .

“You're my friend.” Ed smiled, matching Oswald's geniality. “That's..good.”

“You helped me. Even if you are a bit odd, I’d like to be friends with you.”

“Okay.”

~•~

They ended up making it to French class right before the bell rang. It would've been unbearable, with Tom's empty seat sticking out like a sore thumb, but Ed had found a friend that wasn't his mother or Kristen. He and Oswald became partnered for a French project, and Ed was excited for one of the first times in his life to work in a group that wasn’t his lab partnership with Kristen.

“I never understood the need for so many tenses and rules. Even in English. It gets so confusing.” Oswald said, making his derogatory remarks about the classwork, as was seemingly going to become customary.

“It's so we can enjoy the nuances of language, I suppose.” Edward mumbled, using the in-class time to work on the project while still playing Oswald's little game. It was enjoyable, and he found that whatever sort of banter this was was a strange comfort to him. “That's what makes stories and essays more lively.”

“I guess…” Oswald said with a huff. “But it is still confusing. It makes writing and speaking so much more difficult, being under so much pressure to get the difference between their, there, and they’re right.”

Edward was about to come up with another rebuttal about the importance of grammar, when their French teacher chastised them for speaking English. Oswald rolled his eyes, and muttered something that sounded like ‘what a moldy grape.’ It made Ed laugh, and they shared a smile once again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YOO the first Incidence Of Nygmobblepot happens, it's not he first Actual one, that's coming later hehe sorry

Edward grew closer to Oswald in the following week. They had their inside jokes, and their tenuous friendship survived Ed's accidental slip up when he once called him Penguin 3 times in a row. It was a good friendship they had, and it was bound to last at least a while.

“He does sound nice, if a bit of an odd ball.” Kristen commented in her quiet careful tone, with a quiet, careful smile on her face. “I'm glad you've found a group of friends, Edward, and if I'm going to be honest, it's a lot nicer sitting with them at lunch than with the football team.”

They shared a quiet laugh. It had to be quiet, for they were in their chemistry class. It was Friday, and their teacher had given them a worksheet to finish. It was more of a throw-away assignment for easy points, which translated into the fact that the teacher hadn't finished grading their tests. Ed didn't mind, though, as when both he and Kristen finished early, they got time to talk, and they'd been talking about Oswald and company.

“Yeah. Oswald is a great guy, and Barbara and Tabitha are a bit..intense, but they're decent people. They're real queens, Kristen. I mean, you're still the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.” Edward said this, making sure Kristen knew that there was no doubts to be had. He did tell the truth, after all. Kristen was gorgeous, and she was the nicest person Ed had ever met.

“Ed,” Kristen started, blushing in her cheeks. “You are the sweetest boy. I'm glad you're happy.” She said that and she genuinely meant it. Edward loved that he could talk to her and be free of judgment. There were only a few things he'd never dream of telling her,-/He could never tell anyone about this. No one could know, unless he wanted to become even more of an outcast and be sent to Arkham Asylum up north./-but he could tell her almost anything.

“I can only hope that you're happy, too, Kristen.”

“I really am, Edward. Most of the time.”

They both looked down and declined to mention the empty seat that was present in so many classrooms and at some poor family's dinner table. They never did like ghost stories.

~•~

Later that day, after school had ended and everyone had gone home, Edward and Oswald were in Ed's bedroom working on their French project. There was a plate of snacks left unattended on Ed's nightstand, as his mother was ever desperate to be a good hostess and maintain her reputation. His father was still at work.

“Ed, this is pointless!” Oswald cried, flopping onto Ed’s bed in frustration. “I was never a good story teller. And now we have to write a fantasy story in French? When are we ever going to use ‘l’ogress’ and ‘la princesse’ in real life?”

Ed, who was sitting on the floor next to his bed and reading through his French book, took a few moments to answer. “I find this assignment fascinating. I always tell myself little stories to get me through school or stressful situations. They are often the same things.” The two shared a laugh.

“Don't I know it.” Oswald muttered in response.

“Speaking of school and stressful situations, do you have a date to the homecoming dance?” This earned a big laugh from the both of them.

“Oh Ed, you're really cranked about this dance.” Oswald replied, once he settled down. It was true. Ed would talk about the dance, his suit, and he even spent an entire lunch period speculating about Kristen’s dress, to which Kristen would give no answers. That had been a very nice day. The week had been full of nice days, and the both of them secretly hoped that the good days would never end.

/Of course, nothing could be perfect. No plan was ever perfectly executed and no man was ever perfectly concealed./

“I suppose I am, but, Oswald, you never even talk about it. Why not take Barbara? She's a nice girl, and she's your friend. I'm sure she would love to go with you. It's not too late. The dance is in two weeks, you have-”

“What are you, writing a book?” Oswald interrupted with a short laugh. “Edward, she’s not the type of girl to go to dances. She made a vow, she told me about it. She made a vow never to go to dances again and never to get dressed up for any boy after Jim Gordon humiliated her during her sophomore year.”

Ed's eyes went wide. He knew that Jim and Barbara had dated briefly, but he didn't know why they ended it. “What happened? What did he do?”

“Well, she didn't tell me, exactly, she just called him a ‘lying, dirty scumbag who thought he was the most boss thing around’, and in my opinion, she's right.” Oswald's tone was growing increasingly aggressive, and Ed didn't blame him for it.

“You don't have to tell me twice.” He said, agreeing with Oswald.

They sat in silence for a while, when Ed broke it by tossing his French book from his lap with a bored sigh.

“I don't want to work on this project any more.” Ed groaned. “I mean, I've got the story all figured out. There'll be 2 knights competing for a princess, and it'll end with the seemingly inferior knight and the princess living happily ever after. Everyone likes an underdog, but I just don't feel like writing it in French right at this very moment.”

“Then don't!” Oswald said, suddenly sitting up straight and throwing his hands up in a dramatic gesture. “This...project, whatever you call it, isn't due until next week. Don't be too hard on yourself. Don't be ridiculous.”

“Hey!” Edward held his hands up in a mock surrender. “I'm not the ridiculous one. You're ridiculous for not asking Barbara to the dance!”

Oswald stared at him accusingly. “You set this up-”

“I didn't! I swear!” Ed still had his hands up with a mischievous grin on his face. “Picture this.” He stood up, as if preparing for a Shakespearean monologue. “You show up, making the scene. You're going to look classy! You and Barbara will be wearing an ensemble that, while out of date...don't give me that look, the 20s were 30 years ago- don't give me that look!...will look,” Edward tried to think of a word to accurately describe the picture in his head. “You'll look posh. You'll look…” Ed smiled manically. “...fancy.”

“You are completely ridiculous-”

“You will!” Ed sat next to Oswald on the bed, bouncing them both. “You'll be posh, and fancy, and everyone will be paying attention to you. They'll love you!” They were both laughing at this point, and kept falling into each other. They both blamed it on the instability of Ed’s mattress.

As soon as they calmed down a bit, Oswald turned towards Ed with a small smile on his face, prepared to deny all of what he'd just said. “I don't even like Barbara that way, and even if I..” When their eyes met, though, none of them could find anymore words to say. Their smiles fell, but not because they were unhappy. Ed and Oswald both didn't know what they were and what they felt. So, they just looked at each other, for a while. After a while, Oswald moved closer, Edward moved closer, and-

“Oswald!! It's 6 o’clock, would you like to stay for dinner?!” Edward’s mother shouted from the kitchen.

Whatever that was, whatever moment was had between the two of them dissipated, and the fear grew in both of their eyes. They didn't say anything, but all that was unspoken hung heavy in the air.

“Oswald…” They looked at each other, avoiding eye contact but still looking at each other with the fear, and the shame, and the uncertainty of the unknown and the unspoken. “Do you want to stay? For dinner.” Ed whispered, meaning anything but food and polite conversation.

“I..yes, I would. But…” Oswald let the sentence trail off, but they both knew that something had just happened. They knew.

/They'll know. They’ll know./

~•~

By the time dinner was ready, Ed's father was home. It was the four of them at the dinner table, as Ed was an only child.

“Mrs. Nygma,” Oswald began, ever the charmer. “This meal is absolutely delightful!”

“Oh please, Oswald, call me Carol.” 

The atmosphere was rather cheery for a dinner in the Nygma household. Even the lighting seemed brighter. Usually, it was quite glum around the table, with everyone eating in silence. Now, however, it was almost lively. Of course, Oswald was trying to act as charming as he could for the distraction from what he truly did feel and had felt.

Edward was just the master of pretending things didn't happen.

“I think I'm going to take Kristen to the movies, tomorrow. Can I borrow the car, father?” Edward said, speaking for the first time that night. He'd been silent, and trying to forget.

/He realized he would try to forget this moment as soon as the moment became so close that it became a tangible reality. He knew that he wouldn't be able to./

“It speaks!” Bill Nygma teased, and everyone gathered laughed, of a bit uncomfortably. Bill was never the most sensitive or caring man. “Of course, son. Just don't have too much fun with your girl!” The pat on the back that Ed received from his father felt more like a knock, and he was jarred so that the fork he was holding banged against his plate.

“Thank you, Father.” Edward said, as another round of even more forced laughter made it around the table. So much for those endless nice days shared between him and Oswald.

"Bill, not in front of our guest, please." Carol said in a hushed tone. She turned to her son, and it was as if a mask had fallen over her face. "Edward! You should have Kristen over for dinner sometime. It's been so long.." She allowed the sentence to end, with an only slightly fake smile still plastered on.

“She is a real pretty girl, Ed, of you hadn't of brought her home one day, I would've thought you were some sort of poofter!” Bill either didn't notice his strength, or he didn't care to. The nudge on Edward's shoulder almost knocked him out of his chair. Even though Ed was a rather thin young man, he wasn't so frail that a slight nudge should knock him over. There was no laughter this time.

"Bill Thomas Nygma, that's enough." Carol said, looking away from her son and her husband, looking away from everyone, and instead looking down into her mashed potatoes.

Oswald, uncharacteristically, hadn't spoken during this whole ordeal. Usually, he'd try to break the tension with a somewhat witty comment; it was what he did with all of the school bullies, so why didn't he speak here? “Oh, dear, look at the time, my mother will be worried about me. I regret that I couldn't finish this wonderful meal, Carol, but I must go.” Oswald said, standing up too quickly (Edward noticed the grimace of shooting pain on his face, probably from the strain on his leg.) and looking for an exit from the tension of the situation. “Goodbye!” He smiled, and though it looked somewhat painful, he hobbled away and out of the Nygma family household.

The three of them sat there, still, staring at the empty seat at their poor family's dinner table.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hahahha it's chapter 5, prepare for a twist that you might've seen coming ;) also the murder is this chapter (yeah spoiler alert it's ed haha)

Ed slept in on Saturday. He'd originally planned to wake up early and help his mother with breakfast, but whatever had happened with Oswald had left him emotionally drained and exhausted. He'd spent too much mental energy staring at his ceiling while lying in bed, trying to decipher what had gone on between them in the context of quiet whispers and breathless laughter.

/He should've known he'd be seen. Tom was smarter than he had given him credit for. It's hard to see someone's graces when you’re always on the other side of someone's faults./

It was almost afternoon when he finally pulled himself out of bed. Ed got dressed rather sluggishly, even for a weekend. He made his way downstairs at a few minutes before 1 o’clock.

“Good morning, Edward!” His mother said in a cheerful tone. His father must have been working a shift at the police station, as he was nowhere to be seen. “Or should I say, good afternoon! You know, whenever your father shaves his beard with that ridiculous razor-/he'd been fiddling with his father's razor, despite the risk of rust if he exposed it to rain for too long. Rust on the razor became the least of his worries, though./-of his, he always gets out of the bedroom, but when he does, it's time to go back to sleep! You know, ever since he lost that silly thing, he's grown quite a beard...” She laughed, but Ed just slumped down in his chair. Carol then frowned in concern for her son, knowing that something was wrong. A mother always knows, in that respect. “Is everything okay, Edward?”

“Everything's fine, mother, it's just…” He let the sentence trail off, not sure what to tell her. Ed couldn't even convey these feelings to himself; how could he tell his mother anything about it? “I’ll manage.” Ed looked up towards his mother with a smile, and then stood up. “My, look at the time. I should call Kristen.” He said suddenly, almost snapping out of his dark mood.

Before Ed could make his way to the landline, his mother called out to him. “Ed? Could you wait a minute?” When her son turned back towards her, she grasped his hands in hers. She had a sad smile on her face, and the bright colors on her dress contrasted the tears in her eyes. She had to look up towards Ed, even with her heels on; when had he grown so tall? “You know I love you, right?” As she said this, a tear fell down her face and onto the linoleum.

Ed nodded, then ran to call Kristen. He was never very good at conveying any sort of feelings, not like this. Not after everything.

/He was compromised./

~•~

“I’d love to go to the cinema with you, Eddie! I've wanted to see that new film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You know I'm a sucker for sci-fi!” Kristen had picked up the moniker ‘Eddie’ from just a week of sitting at a lunch table with Barbara Keane. 

Ed had been on the phone with Kristen for a solid ten minutes before he had actually asked her to the movies, but he knew she would accept. She was reliable. She was perfect. He looked over to the stack of Isaac Asimov books in the bookshelf across the room from the phone before responding. “You know I am, too.” Ed said softly, smiling.

“There's a showing today at 7 at the Wonderland. Do you want to go then?” Kristen said, and Ed could hear the smile in her voice. This was what a nice, good day was like. 

They stayed on the line for a while, just listening to each other's smiles, if such a thing was possible. It brought calmness to Ed, knowing that he could be happy with someone. It brought a sort of reassurance to Kristen, knowing that she could be happy even though Tom...

Neither of them liked thinking about Tom.

“I'll pick you up at 5:45, then, and we can go to the diner that's just across the street before it starts.” He was already thinking of the strawberry milkshake that they were going to share, as had become their custom.

“I'll see you then, Eddie...Oh, I'm so excited!!” Kristen almost squealed, then hung up the phone. She twirled around the room where her phone was, then ran to her room to get ready. Little did she know, Ed had just done close to the exact same thing.

/The mix of excitement and adrenaline had turned to cold fear that ran through his veins, coursing like a raging river through him, and it wasn't just the rain that chilled him to the bone./

~•~

Edward arrived at Kristens house at exactly 5:45 pm on the dot, being the ever punctual young man he was. He knocked on the door, and when Kristen opened it, he could hear the chimes of her family's grandfather clock still making noise, indicating that he was, in fact, on time.

She was wearing a light blue cotton dress that Ed knew was her favorite, on account of her wearing it for almost every date they went on. Since the early November chill had begun to permeate the air, she wore a soft forest green cardigan over her dress. Ed had opted for his usual sort of ensemble. They were matching, though, as Ed was wearing a baby blue collared shirt under a slightly darker forest green sweater.

“Oh gosh, Eddie, we’re that sort of couple!” Kristen said in an affectionate way with a guise of false chastising, linking her arm with Ed's as he lead her to the car.

His father's car wasn't the hottest rod by any standards, but it wasn't the car around. It was a light blue 1951 Nash Rambler Country Club. Neither the exterior nor the interior was too fancy, but it got the job done of getting its passengers from place to place and it did the other things that cars were meant to do. Its hood was wide enough so that two people could sit and look at the stars, and it had enough space for a game or two of backseat bingo. Not that Edward ever thought he would do those things. Bill had taken the police cruiser to what he had assured his wife was going to be a long shift at the station (“They're really crankin’ us about that Dougherty boy, say his mother is in hysterics.”), so Ed hadn't had to worry about actually getting to use it.

The couple drove to the diner, talking about everything, yet nothing at all, yet nothing important. They talked about Barbara's hair, and they talked about the probability of them matching their clothes for the night. They didn't talk about the people that mattered; they didn't talk about Tom, and they didn't talk about Oswald.

When they reached the diner, which was named The Iceberg Lounge, they sat at one of those two-seater booths with the bright red leather and ordered their strawberry milkshake. The commuted tones of the colors of their clothes were a contrast to the neons and chrome of the diner. 

Ed and Kristen continued talking about everything but nothing (“I like that you call me Eddie, but imagine me calling you Kristie.” “Now, that's just crazy!”) until their milkshake came, with the two straws as requested. Kristen took the first sip, being careful and dainty as she was with all of her actions.

“You know, it's funny that they call this place the Iceberg Lounge. It sounds more like the name of a nightclub than of a diner.” Edward said, then took off his glasses and placed them in his front sweater pocket so that they wouldn't bump Kristen’s.-/The rain had been coming down hard, so he'd taken off his glasses so they wouldn't get smudged. No wonder he didn't see this coming./-He took a drink of the milkshake from his respective straw, then continued. “Wonderland Cinema makes sense, because films can inspire a sense of wonder within ones self.”

“And they could take you to an entirely different place, an entirely different land, even for a moment.” Kristen said, looking wishful, as if she was daydreaming. After another moment, she spoke again, resting her head in her hands with her elbows on the chrome-rimmed table. “Perhaps this place is called Iceberg Lounge because you could lounge around and do...whatever you want.” Kristen looked up at Ed, smiling coyly.

Their conversation that had been about nothing quickly turned into something more. The talking of nothing that mattered turned into whispering sweet nothings into each other's ear over the half-finished milkshake that stood neglected on the table between them. In less than a moment, Ed and Kristen silently decided that they were going to leave, and Ed left a crumpled bill to pay for their drink. They silently decided that something was going to happen that night in the backseat of that Rambler.

When they got back to the car, there was nothing between them. Ed's crisp collar had been crumpled by Kristens grip, and they tumbled into the backseat with the intentions that had even determined by a cloud of lust. 

/Tom had found him. Tom must've seen him, Tom had-/

“Edward, you know I really do like you.” Kristen said, with passion, which lead to her kissing him again. 

/”Riddlepunk? Damn, I knew it.” Ed heard the unmistakable voice come up from behind him. Thomas Dougherty. He didn't turn around though. His adrenaline had been chased away by fear. “Don't think I haven't seen you following me. Like some sorta..queer or something.”/

Ed wrapped his arms around Kristens waist, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I..I really like you, too, Kris..Kristen.” He said, his exertion coming from multiple sources, trying to chase away that thought. 

/Ed couldn't just ignore him forever, so he turned to look from his position crouched behind the bushes while placing his father's razor in his pocket along with his glasses. He stood up to his full height, which meant he was only a few inches shorter than Tom./

Kristen was shorter than him, but only by a few inches. She made his way to his lap, and then they were eye to eye. He took his glasses from his pocket, and tossed them to the front seat. He didn't want them to get broken.

/”Are you a queer? Are you some sorta..some sorta fag or something..”/

“I really..I really want to kiss you, Kristen.” He said, even though they had been doing just that. 

/”So what if I am? What if I like boys like I like girls?” Ed reasoned that it didn't matter what Tom knew. He was going to kill him soon; Tom would be dead, and he wouldn't be able to say a thing./

Kristen tossed off her cardigan, having it land in the front seat along with Edwards glasses. “Then..kiss me.” She whispered softly in his ear, then did exactly that.

/“Prove it, then..kiss me.” Tom wasn't wearing his rugby jacket. He was wearing a basketball jersey, and his shoulders were bare. Shouldn't he have been cold? Shouldn't he be shivering? Shouldn't he be pounding on Ed, like he normally did when he called people those sort of things?

“What? Tom, you're not making any sense. Why would you want...you're not...you..” Ed blinked several times in a row, in confusion and to clear the rain from his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. It was one of those times where Edward Nygma didn't understand and he couldn't come up with some sort of verbal rebuttal to deflect his own bewilderment. The razor became heavy in his pocket.

“Oh, come on, Nygma. You've been following me. You must want..” Tom let his voice trail, instead finishing his sentence by getting two steps closer. Ed didn't move, though he was crowded now, by both the rain and the seemingly scared boy in front of him.

“It's not what I want. Not exactly, anyways. It's not that I don't-” The rain had plastered his hair to his forehead and was making him freeze but he felt as if a hole was burning through his sweater pocket. A forbidden sort of thing, an illegal sort of thing.

“It's not like I'm a...It's not like it's gonna mean anything..”

“Everything means something, Tom. Nothing is ever truly-”

The punch felt like a kiss, or the kiss felt like a punch. One was his first, one was not. Of course, it was a kiss that felt like fire in the pouring, freezing rain, and it was his first. He found himself grasping at the other boys shoulders. After a moment of confusion, he found himself grasping at Thomas Dougherty, the rain running down his face and into his mouth and soaking him to his bones.

After another moment, there was blood. Ed didn't even remember reaching into his pocket, but there the razor was, in his right hand, covered in blood; he was covered in blood. Tom was on the ground, face and mouth frozen in a silent cry of ‘Riddlepunk, why?’. The blood soaked with the rain into Tom’s bright red basketball jersey, turning the color darker and the material dingy. The red of the blood in contrast to the blondes and greens of a corpse already cooling haunted Ed in that very moment, and would continue to.

The rain had begun to let up, as if it knew that even the torrential downpour couldn't wash away his sins./

Ed didn't know when he started crying. He never cried like this, not like this. He felt so far away.

“Ed..Eddie, Edward, please, answer me!!” Kristen said, shaking him. She was crying, too, and they weren't kissing any longer. She must've been calling out to him for a while, judging by her more than concerned tone and the streaks of mascara on her face.

Ed turned towards her, but didn't speak for the longest time. “Has anyone ever told you that your eyes are the prettiest green?” He then proceeded to collapse into her arms.

They cried, for a while, for reasons that were both different and the same. Kristen eventually drove him home, as he wasn’t in a state to do so. His mother doted on him, thanking Kristen and apologizing to Kristen time and time again. Kristen always insisted that it was fine, that it was no problem, but no one was fine and everyone had problems. 

They never did see that movie.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they find the body?

Edward spent the rest of the weekend in his bed, with his mother bringing up breakfast for him each morning. He didn't eat much else. His mother didn't attempt to talk to him about anything. Carol didn't really know how to approach this subject even though she desperately wanted to comfort her son. It was dinner on Sunday night that forced the confrontation that neither of them expected to come.

For the dinner that Edward had actually bothered to drag himself out of bed for, his mother had cooked meatloaf, which was his father's favorite. This meant that something was wrong.

“Good to finally see you out of that coma.” His father said, and even he couldn't put the joking tone behind it. He was still too tense from his day. He barely ever worked a Sunday.

Carol could sense the tension from her husband and could still tell that her son was..off, so she spoke as calmly as she could. “How was work, honey?” She asked Bill carefully.

“It was..damn it, Carol, I can't lie to you; I can't lie to my family. They found a body. They won't say..but it's that Dougherty boy.” He spoke with a rare solemness that both his wife and his son barely ever saw. “It's Thomas.”

Ed didn't hear the rest of what his father said, and he didn't even register that his father continued to talk. The dining room felt both constrictingly small and monstrously large, and it seemed as if every sense went into overdrive. His own blood rushing through his head became unbearably loud; Ed swore that he could smell and taste the iron tang of it. His palms became sweat coated against the cool metal of his fork and knife, which he was gripping with a white knuckled force. His skin pricked with heat, and he could feel the hot streaks of tears falling and running down his face. He felt so far away, yet so close to everything at once. He was so isolated from-

“Edward! Answer your mother!”

“Bill, Bill! Stop it!”

Ed became strangely grounded when he father started shaking him by his shoulders. He was still crying, sweating, and shaking, but at least he was aware. He hadn't even noticed that his mother had expressed concern before. “I'm okay..” He said, unconvincingly. He looked around, not even at his family, but at the surroundings in the dining room, which seemed familiar yet unfamiliar all at once. 

“I'm..I’ll..I'm fine.” Edward answered again slowly, standing up and going to get ready for school.

~•~

Edward didn't even notice the rowdiness of the other students on his bus ride to school. He supposed they didn't know, at least not yet; they couldn't know; even Ed was technically not supposed to know that Tom was dead. Everyone else was frantic and flipped; the only one who was in a somber mood was Ed, sitting silently in his seat at the front of the bus and staring blankly ahead.

“Eddie! Earth to Edward!” Kristen said, laughing and waving her hands across Ed's face. He barely even remembered getting off of the bus, entering the school, and then walking down to the science wing. “Are you okay?” She asked.

“I'm..okay.” Ed mumbled, answering way too late to not cause any suspicion.

“Are you sure? Is this about...Saturday night?” Kristen asked, putting one of her hands over his on the lab table top in the most reassuring manner that she could.

“No...yes. Something..” Ed took a deep, shaky breath. “Something happened. I can't tell you, in fact, I shouldn't be the one to tell you.”

“Eddie, what do you mean? What happened? You know you can tell me anything.” She said earnestly, slightly squeezing his hand. The worst part to Ed was that Kristen honestly believed what she just said. Edward smiled at her, if a bit sadly, and they continued with their chemistry work, the worksheet being an introductory trial run to Neils Bohr’s work on atomic theory. It seemed so simple, but like many other things in Ed's life, the complications ran deep. 

~•~

The announcement across the PA system came at the worst time; it came during his French class. Ed had been trying to avoid Oswald all day, as the confusion of what had happened on Saturday was too much to face for him at the moment. He didn't even speak to him in chemistry and he was completely silent at lunch. Kristen offered the explanation of him not feeling well, but from a quick glance he could tell that Oswald didn't believe it. Ed was supposed to be a master of pretending that things didn't happen, but it was very apparent to him, at this moment, that two life altering things did, in fact, happen. Now, he was sitting at their usual window seats in the French classroom, trying his best to pretend that his hands were far more interesting than they were.

“Everyone please take the next few moments to settle down. We will be making a very important announcement in approximately a minute.” A calm and cordial voice said over the school's PA system, giving the message a grainy quality. The classroom erupted in confusion and he teacher gave up on trying to review the passé simple, but Ed just began to sweat.

“I wonder what nonsense they're going to tell us about this time.” Oswald said, in an effort to be casual to distract from the truths and speculations flying around in the both of their heads, to which Ed was grateful. He'd been around long enough to know that sometimes the school higher-ups would stop class to say ridiculous things.

“Probably nothing.” Ed said, with unconvincing certainty. “I mean, not nothing, but…” He looked towards his friend. He hadn't maintained any sort of contact, visual or otherwise, for what felt like years. Looking at Oswald's hands on the desk, with the fingers curled together, he realized that he had almost nothing to lose anymore. For the first time in a few days, Edward looked, and actually looked, at Oswald's face. No one was even paying attention to them; how could two cubes, how could two nerds do any harm? They were wrong, and Ed knew they were wrong, but it didn't matter. “Oswald, about...um...Friday afternoon..” He could barely hear himself over the gaggle of the rest of the students.

Oswald looked at him in confusion, as if he didn't know exactly what he heard. When they finally made eye contact, after about 2 days, 22 hours, and 17 minutes (not that either of them had been counting), he knew exactly what he heard. “You and I...hmm.” Oswald started, it having been one of those rare times in his life where he was at a loss for words. He pressed his lips together and continued to look back at Ed in a mixture of emotions that neither of them could decipher.

After about 20 seconds, Ed tried to speak again, tried to bring clarity to the situation, but he was interrupted by the shrill sound of the PA system alert before he could get anything resembling a word out of his mouth. “Students of Gotham Preparatory High School. Before you hear what you are about to hear, I'd like to ask that everyone remain calm.” A pause. Edward could almost hear the shaky breath. “Late last night, the body of Thomas Dougherty was found. I am..upset to say that the police have not ruled out that this was potentially an act of murder.” The voice of the system used a lot of fancy words to say that Tom was killed. There were gasps, and a few girls in the back even started crying. Ed just stared blankly ahead. “This is a time of mourning for our community, and I can only pray that his poor parents are..are doing alright.” Whoever was behind the microphone was beginning to lose control. “We must all come together to support each other in this..trying time. That is all.” There was a faint click, and the announcement ended. Naturally, the room erupted into a barely controlled chaos. The tears that had slipped down cheeks became sobs, and the gasps became the excited of morbid chatter about ‘who did it?’ And ‘what was the motive?’.

“What do you think, Ed? Usually you have your wild theories about everything.” Oswald said, tugging on his friends sleeve. It was true, Ed usually had something smart to say, but nothing about this situation followed the ‘usual’ parameters of anything they'd discussed. 

“Perhaps..um...whoever did this felt betrayed? Or hurt, or confused…” Ed spouted whatever came to his mind, trying to appear as he usually would. It wasn't too far from the truth, though that was what he was trying to avoid. “I'll get our French assignment written up tonight, since it's due tomorrow.” He said, trying to avoid the subject completely.

“Kristen must be really shaken up about this…” Oswald mumbled absently, giving voice to a thought and not knowing the consequences of what he said. Ed hadn't even thought of Kristen at all in the past few minutes, and now all he could picture was her tear stained face.

/The tears that were beginning to fall down his cheeks blended with the now light rain as he stared down at the carnage that he had caused. When had he even begun crying?/ 

“She must be terribly...” He let his sentence trail off, knowing that if he said any more he’d risk something that'd be too close to a confession for comfort. Trying to be calm, and subsequently failing, Ed turned all of his attention to trying not to freak out.

~•~

“I’m going to the vigil.”

Immediately after he got home, Ed had called Kristen. It was a formality that needed to be had, and he truly did care about Kristen enough to at least attempt to comfort the both of them. He hadn’t expected her response, though.

“I have to go. It’s not even a matter of...Edward, you have to understand.” She had dropped the fond nickname of ‘Eddie’, and was clearly trying not to cry. No matter how Ed spun it, he knew it was his fault. “Come with me, as a matter of support for this town, for his family, for him..for me, even!”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.” Ed wouldn’t be able to face the hundreds of mourners at the homecoming game this friday. He could never tell Kristen the true reason why, he could never tell anyone the true reason why, so the reasons she could infer would have to suffice.

“I know he was cruel to you, but Tom can’t even hurt you, he’s…” Ed heard a deep sob from the other side of the phone. “Can’t you just take a few hours of your time to be a decent person?!” Kristen was mad, Kristen was upset and mourning, she couldn’t have known how hard this would hit him.

“Kristen, I swear I would, but-”

“Tom and I were going to go to the homecoming dance together, Edward. We already had our colors picked out. Green, to match our eyes.” Ed felt a pang of emotion that he couldn’t quite comprehend. “But now, I have a date to a dance that I’m not even sure I want to go with to a dance...or anywhere. I need this, and if you can't accept that, then...well, I don't want to be with you anymore.”

“What? Kristen-”

“I need to mourn, Edward. I’m going to that vigil, even if I don’t stay for the football game, and I’m going to sit with the football team and their girlfriends at lunch again, because they won’t avoid the subject of my missing..” A deep, breathy sigh, with almost tangible sorrow. “..my dead boyfriend like the plague!” She punctuated her exclamation with the click of the receiver, and Ed became vaguely aware that he’d just been dumped.

It was 1956. Edward Nygma didn't have a date to the first school dance of the year, the body of Thomas Dougherty had been found, and the new kid’s name was Oswald Cobblepot and he was Ed's closest friend.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THEY FINALLY KISS (and no thats not an april fools joke)

Edward spent the rest of the week leading up to the dance, that he was no longer going to, in an extremely tense state. He just went through the motions of life as a high school student: wake up, go to school, get home, do homework, go to sleep, and wake up again. He moved through life like something akin to a robot. He avoided talking about anything important, and he especially avoided participating in the talk and gossip about Tom Dougherty. Glances over to where Kristen sat now at the table with all of the bulls and jocks hurt enough.

Telling his mother that Kristen had dumped him was one of the bad parts of that week. He didn't even remember starting to cry, but he knew he was crying for all of the wrong reasons. Carol and Ed had a silent agreement that they wouldn't tell his father, for all of the reasons, right and wrong.

The day of the homecoming football game, the day of the vigil, was the worst day of the week. His track record with emotional confidence correlating to Fridays wasn't spotless by far.

“You know, I heard that whoever killed Tom did it because they wanted revenge. I mean, what sort of revenge? I don't know...but, it's intriguing, even though it's very sad that he's dead.” Barbara said in a characteristically non-stop stream of consciousness. Ed had been trying to tune her out at lunch, because all she talked about ever since Tom's body had been discovered was Tom or Kristen’s poor broken heart. He recalled her saying to him that he really shouldn't blame himself for the breakup, that Kristen was emotionally damaged, that she needed some time and it wasn't his fault. She didn't know how wrong she was. He picked at his food, chuckling to himself at the irony. He was so zoned out, he almost forgot who and what they were talking about. Ed reasoned that anyone in his situation would become unhinged, although to get into his situation you would have to be a fair amount of unhinged to begin with.

“Ed? Are you alright?” Oswald said, voicing his rare concern in a careful tone. He wouldn't easily forget watching how Ed's entire demeanor had changed in an instant that Monday afternoon in French class.

“I'm fine..” Ed said, twirling a baby carrot around in his fingers, speaking in monotone, yet still giggling in a very unsettling manner. /Why couldn't he be normal? Why couldn't he just deal with bullies like a normal person? Why did he have to do this? Why did he never react correctly to anything?/

“Okay.” Oswald replied with a forced chuckle, still wary but not wanting to press the matter any further. He turned back to Barbara and Tabitha, and the three were engaged in gossip, that was and wasn't about Tom, once again.

~•~

“Ed, you just shouldn't go. Going to the dance will only make you miserable.” Oswald and Edward were using their French class as more of a social hour, as Ed hadn't really participated in any of the lunchtime discussion that was had.

“I have to go..even if not with Kristen. My father..” Ed didn't really know what words to use to describe how angry his dad would be if he learned that he'd bought a suit for nothing without using the word ‘angry’. “I already have a suit.” He opted to leave his father out of the explanation entirely.

“You could still wear the suit if you're going stag.” Oswald said, fiddling with the pencil he wasn't using. “And I'm sure that I could figure something out. I mean, to wear, that is.” He smiled softly to himself, as if he'd just heard a fond joke or compliment. “You've got a car, too. I'm sure your dad will be busy, with all those teenagers running about.” He said the word ‘teenager’ like their classmates were a plague upon the earth, and made a wide gesture with his pencil to accompany his statement. They laughed together, with real laughing and not just nervous giggling, earning a not-as-usually-stern glare from their French teacher. When the laughter subsided, Oswald spoke again. “We could do whatever we wanted.” He said with an impish grin. They both thought of the twinkle in each other's eyes as a figment of imagination, not daring to think otherwise.

“My dad would probably kill me if he knew I was going stag instead of going to the dance.” Ed mumbled, letting the seemingly false implication set in. He was looking down at his hands on the desk, at his fingers tapping. Laughter was one of the last thoughts in his mind.

“He doesn't have to know, Ed.” Oswald said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He had a look on his face that meant ‘mischief’, and if it meant that Ed had to lie to his father, then mischief it certainly was.

“I suppose you're right.” Edward returned the conniving look on Oswald's face with a mischievous grin of his own.

They spent the rest of that French class making their plan so that they could actively deceive Ed's father. Luckily for them, their French teacher was one of the less jaded members of the school staff, and didn't seem to mind that they weren't doing their work. Her whole philosophy was to ‘let her students process as they need too.’, and if she could process the whole situation of one of her students being murdered at the same time, she figured that it wouldn't hurt too much.

/He couldn't burn the body, he'd smell like smoke, he didn't have any matches, and the environment was too damp./

~•~

Ed spent his evening pretending that each candle lit at the vigil across town didn't personally burn a hole through his chest.

~•~

“Oh, Ed, you look so handsome!” His mother said, clutching her hands together at her chest. “I'm so glad that you and Kristen talked and made up.” It hurt to lie to his mother, but how would Ed explain? At least she could be happy.

“Thank you, mother.” He stood in the foyer, with his mother appraising his appearance. She'd been like this at the tailor, as well. Ed was outfitted in a dark emerald suit, which he had picked to match Kristen’s green ensemble that she had already purchased. He was upset about the truth of her dress, for the right and the wrong reasons, so his smile was only slight.

Before his mother could speak again, they both heard the loud steps of Bill Nygma coming down the stairs. When they saw that he was smiling, Edward and his mother let out the tension that they didn't realize that they'd been holding in their shoulders. Ed's father was smiling; Ed’s father looked happy. “I'm proud of you, son.” He said, and the hand on Ed's shoulder didn't have any malicious intent behind it. Carol looked like she could burst into tears at any moment, and she clasped her hands together, not quite knowing how to express the swell of emotion she felt for her two boys.

Ed couldn't quite place the tightness in his chest into any particular emotion. His father was proud of him, but that couldn't be the truth; it wouldn't be the truth if his father knew the ultimate truth, the truth with the consequences that looked in the back of Ed's mind day in and day out.

/Hiding the body was a blur. Everything beyond the killing, beyond the murder, was a blur. He remembered the dampness of the nearby woods where he had dragged Tom’s body. He remembers the steam of the shower he'd taken, trying to scrub away every last trace of what he'd done. He remembered the soft thumping noise that his father's razor had made when he threw it into the back of his closet. His closet would keep the secret; his closet would keep the truth hidden./

Ed shook his head minutely, dismissing the thought of the truth, as if it would dismiss the truth itself.

“Now, have some fun tonight.” Bill said, trying to convey one of those moments of father-son understanding that seemed so rare. He dropped the keys to the Nash into his sons hands, and then he and Carol waved their son out of the door and toward the car. As Edward waved back towards his parents, who were on the stoop arm-in-arm, he could almost pretend that they were normal. Ed could almost pretend that he was normal.

~•~

Ed drove to the address that he was given. ‘The Van Dahl mansion.’ was written, along with some numbers and a street name, in Oswald's looped handwriting. Even the dot in the ‘i’ of mansion was a small swirl.

It certainly was a mansion, with the tall spires and windows that seemed to indicate that there were four floors. Ed walked up to the large, imposing door, and knocked once. He would've knocked again, but the door swung open to reveal Oswald Cobblepot. The other boy seemed to have really gone all out, even though they weren't going to the dance or anywhere, really. He was dressed in a deep purple suit, with a matching cravat. Ed had only seen cravats in movies or read about them in books, but Oswald looked positively regal, and he carried himself with so much confidence that it looked like he knew that fact.

Oswald walked right past Edward on the front stoop, and towards the car that was parked on the side of the street. As he watched his friend hobble towards his car, his mind began to wander as it so often did. Before he let himself get too far, however, Ed followed Oswald to his car, and opened the passenger door for him.

“It's almost like a real date.” Oswald remarked too casually as he sat down in the car. They both smiled to themselves, smiles which held too many truths and too many secrets. Edward then walked to the drivers side, got in as carefully as he could, and began to drive.

~•~

Edward had no idea what possessed him to drive to the field where he killed Tom. It wasn't like he and Oswald had any particular plan on where to go, though. He chalked it up to a screwed up sense of nostalgia. The night was cool and clear, and they were on the hood of the car, stargazing.

Edward couldn't help but let his mind wander. It wandered all the way across the town, in fact, to the flimsy paper decorations and live yet mediocre band at the homecoming dance. He'd heard talk that she'd decided to go on without him, and there was always some truth to the gaggle of the masses.

“Kristen's never going to want to speak to me again.” Ed said to break the silence, and he didn't feel or sound as forlorn as he expected himself to be. His hands were folded on his stomach in a contemplating manner.

“You don't sound like you care too much.” Oswald said in a simple observation. He had his hands propping up his hands on the windshield.

“I..you're right, technically, but..I had someone to care about, and I threw it away. I threw it all away...my dad said he was proud of me, if only he knew..” Ed shook his head, all of the sudden a lot more sad than he had been. “Everyone says my dad’s a great man, he fought in World War Two when I was very small, but I don't see it. I just don't. I always hear that my father is some sort of great man, but I have trouble seeing a good one.” Edward looked over towards Oswald, who seemed to be patiently listening without comment. “You've seen him.” After a minute nod from his friend, Ed turned his head back around to stare at the stars and the moon, that seemed so close yet so far away. “You know…”

“I saw. I..I know.” Oswald whispered softly, almost afraid of breaking something that was tangible in the air. “At least you've got a mother, a nice one, too.” A fragile smile, and they both realized that the something tangible was the vestiges of Oswald's own grief. “My mother was a nice woman. A wonderful woman, even. She was always there for me, when I was sick, when I was full of sorrow. She was there for me when this..” He waved a hand toward his leg, trying to remain nonchalant and almost succeeding. “..happened. No more little league for me!” He gave a noncommittal chuckle that soon dissolved back into the silence before it. She..she died suddenly, I was told of some sort of hidden illness, and I was sent to live with my father and my stepmother and stepsiblings. They're awful-not my father, my father is a..good man..” Edward felt Oswald's quick pitying gander, and felt a pang of jealousy. “But my stepmother, Grace, and Sasha and Charlie...They've got him so twisted and manipulated and wrapped around their little dirty fingers...it hurts for me to see him, Ed, he's a great man, and they took it all away.” There was a crack in Oswald's voice that could be mistaken for a sob. The something tangible was shared between the two in abundance, each contributing to the tension for reasons that were different and yet very much the same.

“Everyone's really nervous about that Tom Dougherty murder, you know..” Oswald said, trying to change the subject as quickly as he could, not knowing where he sat or who he was talking to in relation to the event in discussion. “To think, I come to town, and this happens! Death must just follow me wherever I-”

"I killed him." Edward burst out suddenly, not being able to contain himself, having already shared so much of his personal life and feelings, having already put himself in edge just by being in this spot.

Oswald blinked once, and then twice. "You..you killed him." He said in slight disbelief, trying to process what he had just heard. The something tangible was back, and it was so much different this time.

"Almost right here, where we sit on this car. I was crouched in the grass, waiting, and I killed him." Edward was speaking urgently now, willing Oswald to believe him. He sat up, pointing towards the woods. "That was where I dragged the body. I killed Tom Dougherty." Ed faced Oswald once again, who was still leaning back on the windshield. 

"You did." Oswald didn't look frightened, or scared. He looked something that Edward didn't quite understand, and the something tangible turned to something that felt like fire.

"I'm sorry..I mean, I'm not, but, I mean..I just needed to tell someone." Ed said desperately. He met Oswald's eyes, and he became acutely aware of three things: the faint smile on Oswald's face, their close proximity, and the fact that in this moment he had nothing to lose. He rested his hand on the top of Oswald's thigh; they didn't have to be careful here, and the something tangible transformed to reflect that sentiment. They weren't in Ed's bedroom. In the middle of the field, on top of the hood of Ed's father's car, Edward and Oswald only had to be careful so that they didn't fall. It was truly just the two of them against the rest of the world.

Edward was acutely aware of both of the physical and emotional risks when he turned entirely around and crawled on top of Oswald, ending up so that he was straddling him. His mind was oddly quiet, considering...everything. He supposed that the confession was the cathartic release that he had so desperately needed. Edward gazed upon Oswald's face, at the lips curled into a smile, at the moonlight reflected in his eyes. “Your eyes...they’re green.”

“Yes.” Oswald replied in a breathless tone, confirming what was already true and giving permission for a million other things. It was in that next moment that Edward closed the gap between them, which in reality had been mere inches but felt a million miles wide.

The feeling of Oswald's lips against his wasn't rough or demanding; there were no thoughts of the murder or of murder in any way. It was slow and sweet, under the moonlight and clear, starry sky. Oswald's hands and fingers had found their way immediately to Ed's once perfectly combed hair, while Ed let himself explore the fabric of Oswald's suits and the back of Oswald's neck. It was all softness, lips, tongue, and no teeth. There was no harsh bite of a mouth or harsh words or a blade. It was so romantic that it was criminal. Ed realized, after a few moments, that what they were doing was, in fact, criminal. 

"This is illegal." Ed stated in his typical matter-of-fact way. He was hovering a few centimeters over Oswald's face; he hadn't pulled far enough away to actually mean it.

"You say that like you didn't kill a man." Oswald said, in the same tone he would use to mock a chemistry problem but with an endless fondness that didn't seem as out of place as it should have, and the something tangible turned to something that was far too sweet.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somethings Gonna Happen, And Happiness Is Not The Result

The two of them kissed delicately on top of the hood of Ed’s dads car for a while, reveling in something that wasn’t quite dangerous but wasn’t anywhere near innocence. Edward Nygma and Oswald Cobblepot were in their own little world for the precious few hours that they had; even when they were driving back home, time didn’t feel like it existed for them. Ed took the long way home because he wanted to make whatever they had last. Oswald realized this quickly, but he didn’t mind. The easy banter they had with each other, the feeling of just being next to each other and with each other, was intoxicating. 

They both dared a quick kiss goodbye in the camouflage of the winding drive of the Van Dahl mansion; when Oswald would have simply gotten out of the car, they leaned towards each other for a quick little peck. It was devastatingly sweet in the way of a sugary piece of candy that you know will rot your teeth as it melts in your mouth: no matter how much time you tried to savor it, the sweetness would always come to an end and you’d be left with an ache.

“Goodnight, Oswald.” Edward muttered all too forlornly, sensing the end of their prolonged moment. Their eyes met, and the seconds dragged on before either of them spoke. In each others eyes, they were seeing the truth of the matter at hand, and the truth was sweet and painful. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“I’ll see you then, Ed.” Oswald said as he looked a way with a sudden movement. Looking towards the mansion that he knew wouldn’t ever feel like home, he left the car and walked towards the looming hulk of a house.

Edward spent more time than he would ever admit to in that driveway, thinking about everything-/Tom, Kristen, Oswald, oh Oswald, isn't he so boss?/-yet trying to think of nothing at all.

~•~

Edward Nygma pulled up to his smaller and brighter, but equally as gloomy and dysfunctional house about an hour too late. He sent a quick prayer to whatever God was up there-/Whatever God there is has abandoned you./-that his mother wasn’t worried sick and that his father wasn’t too upset. He knew his father would wait up for him; that’s just the kind of man that Bill Thomas Nygma was.

He walked into the kitchen, the fluorescent lights much too bright after getting by with just the illumination of the moon reflecting off of a lover’s eyes. He was already tense, shoulders hunched and hands curled up into fists.

“There you are!” Ed’s father said, and to Ed it sounded more like shouting than the slightly above average speaking voice that his father so unfortunately possessed. The stark contrast to the dark and quiet of his tryst with Oswald to the brightness and loudness of his current situation was what alarmed him the most. Edward felt that he was lucky that his mother wasn’t downstairs to see him; a mother almost always knows some way or another when it comes to this sort of thing. His father, thank the absent God, was completely oblivious. “The dance ended about forty seven minutes ago. Your mother and I, we were worried.” He actually almost sounded genuinely concerned.

The way they were standing and facing each other, it felt like a western style stand-off. None of them were brandishing guns, though; Bill Thomas Nygma was standing tall with his arms crossed and Edward Nygma was just standing there, trying not to let any overwhelming paranoia overtake him.

“We went driving around for a while..me and Kristen, we were just driving.” Ed's reply was unconvincing and too far from the truth for his own comfort. He'd almost forgotten that he was supposed to be with Kristen; she had been more of an afterthought.

“Sure…” Ed’s father said, winking with suggestion and implying something that his son was not. He’d gotten closer to the truth than his son, but he was still off. Ed had gotten lucky, he supposed. “I’m proud of you.” 

That just felt wrong.

Ed ended their conversation with a curt nod that he hoped would suffice an appropriate response to the comment that he didn’t have the words for. He headed upstairs to his room and fell immediately onto his bed, not caring that he was wrinkling his suit. He stared at the ceiling and tried, for the umpteenth time since he’d met the boy, to make sense of Oswald Cobblepot.

He didn’t remember when or how his hand had wandered to beneath the waistband of his trousers. He didn't remember when he became aroused, just that he was thinking of Oswald and their wonderful, glorious albeit ended-too-soon night together, and this was his reaction. He remembered his ‘comprehensive’ sex ed, he remembered the videos shown to his freshman PE class warning of the dangers of both masturbation and the homosexual lifestyle. He got with it, and he understood the purpose of showing young, impressionable boys these films. As his fingers crept down his abdominal area, he found that he didn’t really care.

This actually felt right.

He started with slow, languid movements along the shaft of his dick which became faster as his fantasies grew more wild. He let soft, quiet whimpers escape his lips as he thought of Oswalds mouth, hot against his collar and on the head of his cock. Ed began fucking into his hand in earnest when he thought of Oswalds eyes, looking up through thick, dark lashes as he wrapped his tongue hotly around Ed's cock. It was all a wet heat, and Ed was panting at the exertion. His eyes fluttered shut and he had to bite back a moan when he thought of Oswalds hands, around his waist, around his neck-

Edward came soon after, breathing all frantic, almost too lethargic to change out of his soiled dress pants. It soon became a matter of comfort, and he tossed his ruined dress clothes into the back of his closet. The proverbial skeletons were piling up, but in that moment, Ed felt blissful. Just because the closet was a place for his secrets didn’t mean it was a place for his shame-/you barely feel anything, anymore, do you, not after you think of your lust for him./-to overshadow him. He refused to let his guilty conscience about Oswald overshadow him, even if vestiges of darkness did still seep through the cracks like the dull gleam of a slightly rusted razor blade.

~•~

Edward Nygma spent the rest of the weekend daydreaming about Oswald, and it wasn't all filthy fantasy. He simply wanted to spend time with the other boy, in any way possible. He craved the proximity of that saturday night in the car, when they were just driving and doing nothing at all. It meant everything to Ed to be able to have that with someone, even if that someone couldn’t be Kristen.

Edward hoped that Kristen would be okay; he knew that Kristen would be okay. Tom and her were close, but she would get over him, in due time. It might take years, but in due time, when thinking of Tom, she would only feel the dull ache of remembrance. Edward could always hope. 

/In due time, you’ll get caught, too, and then Kristen will never forgive you. You can always hope that they won’t suspect you with your motivation as grounds for a warrant, and you can always hope that the warrant won’t lead them to search your bedroom and your closet. It’s all futile, though. Imagine what your mother would think when they found your fucking disgusting suit next to the murder weapon. Now, what sort of implications will they draw from that?/

The voice that had narrated Edward’s flashbacks to horrid things-/Oh, don’t call them horrid, you know that you had fun./-had returned, and this time it was narrating his demise into paranoia. It..He couldn’t even be drowned out by the happiest thoughts that Edward had, and it was as if the ‘other’ him was ever lurking, waiting for an opportune time to make himself known.

It was a cool, eerily still Sunday night. Ed was lying flat in his bed, both looking forward to and absolutely dreading the next day to come. He, the ‘darker’ him, was whispering into his ear.

/Oswald found out, and he didn’t care, but who’s to say that he isn’t exactly like you? What if he’s killed before? What if he killed his own mother?/

“He wouldn’t do that.” Edward snapped defensively, tossing and turning in his bed as if he was having a shockingly horrific nightmare.

/How do you know? Do you truly know him? Do you truly know any of those people you call your friends? You're better than them. We're better than them!/

“Go away!” Edward shouted, burying his head into his pillow and trying to drown out the noise. He felt a cold shiver run down his back, as if a wicked hand was making a mockery of a soothing gesture. He thrashed wildly about, hot tears pouring down his face and soaking his pillowcase, trying to shake off whatever invisible monster had just sprung forth. When his room door creaked open and the light became far too bright. Ed became terrified that the monster had become tangible. 

“Eddie! Sweetheart!” There was no physical monster. It was Ed's mother, running towards him and scooping him into her arms as if he was a child again. 

They sat there for a while, Edward crying and shaking and sweating, his mother trying to sooth him but now knowing how. The bad dreams about clowns, snakes, and other more trivial things of childhood were over. What could she possibly do? Carol held her son tight against her, as if to protect him from the evil in the world that had caused this. How could she possibly know?

Edward let himself be comforted by his mother, and her kind words and calming embrace were the opposite of the icy touch that had raked down his back earlier. Yet, despite her presence, he kept crying and heaving and sobbing until the sun peaked over the horizon.

~•~

Ed stayed home from the next day. He woke up from the few hours of sleep that he had feeling stiff, and the mere thought of what happened yesterday evening summoned a wave of nausea. He hated to think of what effect the jostling human interaction of a school hallway would have on him. Thankfully, at the moment while he was just lying in bed, his mind was a peaceful and merciful quiet.

He had gone back to sleep almost as soon as his mother gave her blessing and promise that she would notify the school of his absence. He woke up much later, again to his mother’s voice. She had answered the door for someone, but Ed couldn’t figure out for whom. Only when he heard a familiar uneven gait walking up the stairs did he realize that Oswald had come to visit him. Edward must’ve slept through the whole school day.

“May I come in?” Oswald asked as he knocked, and Edward let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Perhaps he had secretly feared that his mind was playing tricks on him, but Oswald’s voice was real. What he heard right then wasn’t the unsettling chill, and it wasn’t the personification of malcontent; it was all just Oswald. 

“Yes.” Edward said, and it came out in a whisper. He couldn’t be surprised at how feeble he sounded when all that he’d done in the past 18 hours or so was cry.

The door opened, creaking slightly, which sent another chill of fright down his spine. It was quickly soothed by Oswalds entrance. He was clutching a small stack of papers, which he set on the dresser. “I brought your homework from school.” Oswald said, biting his lip with a concerned look on his face. “I was worried about you.”

Edward sat up in his bed, facing Oswald, looking up towards him. Ed realized that he was still wearing his pajamas, which were a pastel shade of green in contrast to his blue bedroom. Oswald seemed on edge, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in a defensive manner. “I missed you.” Edward said, his voice still a whisper. They finally looked in each other's eyes, and it gave Edward comfort to see Oswald's shoulders sag even slightly in relief. “I missed you a lot.” He said again. He smiled, although it was tinged with a sort of sadness like this was the last moment they had together. It felt like they were again prolonging some sort of ending. The feeling was irrational, but the tension was thick.

“You know that I don't care that you killed someone, right?” Oswald in a whisper that felt much too loud. There was the tension even though Oswald was smiling; the question had spilled out of Oswald like he'd been holding it in since that fateful night. “Ed...I'm crazy for you-”

“My mother’s downstairs. She can't know that I..I killed someone, Oswald, do you understand that I took a human life...” Edward harshly whispered, and stood up quickly to emphasize his point even though it made him dizzy. He was practically towering over Oswald and when he saw his smile fade, something in his heart broke. “Ozzie. I’m sorry.” 

The familiar nickname brought the smile back to both of their faces, and Edward stepped slowly forward. They were inches apart, and Edward leaned forward shyly to press a soft kiss to Oswalds cheek, as if it was the first time he’d ever kissed someone. The kiss after that was a real one, with Edward cradling Oswalds cheeks in his hands and Oswald grasping the collar of Ed’s nightclothes. It had all of the softness and emotion of a proper kiss, and right then, breathing in each others scent became as important as breathing in the air around them.

They pulled away from each other almost as quickly as they’d started kissing each other, as if they realized when and where and who they were. “My mother’s downstairs..” Ed chuckled sadly, wishing he could spend just an hour with Oswald, talking and kissing and doing other things of the sort. He couldn’t; it was the way things were in 1956. They looked at each other with a certain weight behind their gazes, because no one could take that away, even if someone could take away everything else. “Thank you for the schoolwork. I’ll see you tomorrow!” Edward smiled, attempting to assuage the tension in the room.

Oswald never responded out loud. A glimmer of a kind of unidentifiable sadness flashed across his features, and he left Ed’s room. 

~•~

On Tuesday morning, Ed felt much better than he had on the previous day. Dinner on Monday hadn’t even been unbearable, and his father hadn’t brought up Tom Dougherty once. Even a call from the police station had been handled with minimal shouting and demands that ‘Gordon should respond to the call, I don’t care how big it is, I want to spend time with my family.’. It was like someone had taken one look at Edward Nygma’s life and decided to give him a break.

/It’s too good to be true, and you know it./

He walked into chemistry that morning with something resembling a smile on his face. The normally rowdy kids on the bus had given him a wide berth, and he didn’t feel as irritated as he normally would have been. When he looked around the chemistry classroom, he barely even noticed the wary and even frightened faces turned his way. All that Ed noticed was that Oswald was gone.

His mind immediately went to the worst possibilities. What if Oswald had been hit by a car on the way home from his house? What if-

/He’s probably sick from kissing you, idiot./

Edward sighed in a mixture of relief and confusion. He wasn’t used to the voice of terror residing in his head being a voice of clarity or rationality. When he saw the confusion reflected across the faces of his classmates, he sat down and attempted to not draw too much attention to himself. 

He felt the pitying and hateful gazes, and he couldn’t help but wonder which sort of face Kristen was making. He dared a glance in her direction, and felt a pitying sting of his own when he saw that she didn’t look at him with pity or with hate, but with some sort of profound sadness. When they met each other’s eyes, they both looked away quickly, as if they’d been burned by each other’s stare.

Ed passed through the day until lunch in a catatonic type of state, trying to push down the emotions and thoughts and feelings that were running through his head. His encounter with Kristen had been draining at best, but it made sense that she’d be upset. 

/You still care about her. How sweet./

He shook his head ever so subtly, trying not to draw attention to himself but desperately trying to rid himself of the voice in his head. It was his evil self, all of the cynicism and that cold unfeeling that he'd tried to shove away. Edward Nygma was becoming his own worst enemy.

“Eddie! Edward!” Barbara said urgently, snapping her fingers at him and bringing him back to the present. “Jesus, Ed. Tabs and I thought you were going faint on us.” 

The two girls were looking at him with concern. Their looks weren't like the frightened or judgmental on his other classmates faces, and they didn't look as sad as Kristen. Barbara and Tabitha looked worried for him.

“Now, Barbara is about to tell you something very important. I'd listen to her, Nygma.” Tabitha said, leaning back into her chair as if to observe whatever situation was about to take place.

“You're probably wondering why everyone is paying attention to you in a really weird way. As if you're some sort of time bomb.” Barbara started. 

“I have, actually.” Edward responded. The worrisome thoughts came back to the forefront of his brain. They weren't even that comprehensible, and just evoked a general feeling of chaos and anxiety.

“Oswald's probably going to that mental asylum. Arkham. He killed his step-mother and step-siblings, went out somewhere, god knows where, and then came back to a sizable police presence. Neighbors had heard the screams.” Barbara said, as if she'd been holding it in. Edward could feel the blood draining out of his face. Oswald had gone out to visit him. The call that his father had received the night before was about Oswald. Before Edward could say anything, Barbara continued. “James came to school bragging about how his dad had arrested a ‘genuine freak’. When asked who it was, he just said ‘place your bets!’. He told me who it was, of course. Didn't spare the details that his father told him. He loves it when I suffer. He had to rub it in my face that I was friends with someone who killed someone. James Gordon is such an ass!” The silence that followed her exclamation was almost deafening, but with a quick glance around the cafeteria that could probably kill someone, everyone went back to their conversations. “I'm sorry, Ed. I know that you and Ozzie were good friends...”

“You two were...really tight.” Tabitha interrupted with a sly, implicating grin

Edward blanched. How could they have found out? Had Oswald told them where he'd been, had he told them everything, had he told James Gordon's dad that they'd kissed? Had Mr. Gordon come home, and told the family over dinner about how he'd arrested some fag-

“Rumors, Tabs!” Barbara said, ending his train of thought and providing a sense of relief that at least he wouldn't be ridiculed for that. “They were the only subjects of James Gordon's cruel bet, it was bound to go around once someone suggested that they'd both been arrested.”

/That would've been a story for the ages. ‘Eddie and Oz’, like Bonnie and Clyde! What a story to tell the grand-kids. Oh..wait. Sorry./

“I..I have to go.” Ed mumbled, standing far too quickly from the table to not be suspicious. He knocked his chair with his knees and then rushed out of the cafeteria, trying to avoid the judgmental gaze of the masses.

By the time he got to his French class, Edward was a mess. He’d spent the rest of lunch in the bathroom, leaning against a toilet in a stall, trying not to puke and trying to calm his racing heart. He sat in his usual seat, his eyes fixed onto Oswalds empty seat. 

Oswald was gone. He’d just been trying to rid the world of hurt and sadness and deception; Ed could relate to that. Yet Oswald had been taken from him because he let his emotions cloud his judgement. While on a good day, Ed would consider that sort of thing irrational, his judgement was also emotionally clouded. He’d kissed Oswald, and it’d been nothing like kissing Tom or even kissing Kristen. There’d been something more than just lust, or care; there had been genuine feelings. They had feelings for each other, even in a time like this where nothing was sacred.

Oswald was gone, but he’d visited Edward before he was taken. He gave him a goodbye kiss; If only Edward had known how much of an impact that particular goodbye would end up having. He would’ve begged Oswald to stay, if only to give them a few hours more, but Oswald had to go. Edward had to follow him.

/Aren’t you committed?/

Ignoring the smirk in his own twisted voice, Edward retrieved a piece of paper from his backpack. Oswald was gone, and Ed had decided that he would go, too. His french teacher had assigned an extra credit essay each semester starting his sophomore year. Kids only did it if they needed it to bring up their grades and such, but Ed needed to do this for an entirely different reason. He needed Oswald. He picked up his pencil, and in a short, matter-of-fact script, he began to write.

“Je suis Edward Nygma, et j’ai tué Tom Dougherty.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! After a while, yes.
> 
> Edward has made an irreversible decision.

Edward Nygma was granted exactly five hours and twenty seven minutes before the universe came crashing down around him.

When he got home from school, he greeted his mother, and then went to his room. Usually, at this point, he would start his homework, but such trivial things didn’t matter when he'd already signed his own jail sentence.

He heard his father get home from work at the police station, and he heard the harsh whispers that he was most likely the cause of.

“Bill, you’re being ridiculous. He’s been under a lot of stress, lately, with university applications and the near breakup with Kristen, maybe he just thought this would be funny! You know how our son has a rather strange sense of humor-”

“Carol. You know that Ed would never take such things lightly. He’s a very serious young man, and-”

“All I’m saying is-”

“All I’m saying is that i am holding a translation of a written and signed confession to murder that our son wrote!”

“Just let me talk to him, please.”

The conversation taking place downstairs was at full volume, now, and the end was a yell from his father and attempted assuagement from his mother. The familiarity of the situation before him was frightening; he could almost pretend that the murder wasn’t significant, but he knew better than to deny the truth before him.

By the time his mother opened his door, Ed was sitting with the razor blade in his hands, looking down on the damning evidence. He didn't speak. She would know, either way.

“Eddie? Your father and I-” Carol stopped when she saw her son's fingers curled around a blood stained murder weapon. “No..no.” She was in denial; who wouldn't be? Who would outright accept that their son, their only son, was a killer? She thought that Bill had been delusional, and apparently she had thought wrong. She didn't know what to think. Ed watched this thought process flicker across his mother's face from the spot on his bed, looking up at her with a clenched jaw while still maintaining a white-knuckled grip around the razor. “So that's where Bill’s razor went.” She sounded calm, but tears were streaming down her face and she was visibly shaking. She was in shock.

The next thing that either of them heard was her scream.

~•~

Everything after that night happened fast.

Edward’s father had somehow refrained from even speaking to his son as he watched his colleagues lead him from the house; the shame of his son, a prominent policeman's son, committing murder silenced him. Somehow, that hurt Ed more than anything physical his father could've done to him.

~•~

His mother cried. She cried as he was arrested, she cried when he was sentenced, and she cried as they lead him from the courtroom to be escorted to Arkham Asylum.

When he saw Kristen sat in the back with a blank look on her face and red rimmed eyes, he looked away. He'd secretly hoped that she'd be spared from all of this. 

/”Of course not. She wanted closure, no matter the cost. Isn't that the exact reason that you confessed?”/

The voice was smirking, knowledgeable of the things that Ed had tried to push away into the deepest parts of his consciousness.

~•~

“Edward Nygma, you are hereby sentenced to Arkham Asylum for Criminally Insane Youth.”

At least something went as he supposed it would. At least he had this.

~•~

Ed’s first week in Arkham went by like an unpleasant fever dream. There were the diagnostic therapists appointments, where he sat and gave the most taunting answers that he could. There were a quick succession of doctors, some with smooth, eerily calming voices, and some that would snap at his slightest movement out of turn. At night, there were the screams of his fellow ‘patients’. Everybody knew that they were inmates. Everybody knew and nobody cared; that was the most tragic part of it all. 

In the time when he was alone, Ed had a bit of time to think. Sometimes Ed thought of his mother, and thought of her sadness and shame and guilt. When he thought of his father, he just felt sick. He thought of Kristen sometimes, and felt the bile in his throat rise at the unfairness of it all. He knew in his heart that she didn’t deserve this and that she was suffering. She’d get over it, of course, there were people who would be able to help her. She had to be okay.

‘“Good morning, sunshine!” His thoughts were interrupted by a bitter sounding orderly knocking on his cell door. Today was his first day with the rest of the asylum’s population. He was understandably nervous, but this was far worse than just starting a new school. He didn’t know which would be worse: seeing all of the new faces who were possibly more violent than he ever dreamed of being, or the fact that there would be one familiar face in the crowd.

Being lead to breakfast, Edward had a lot of time to think. Would Oswald be surprised to see him? How would Oswald look in this absolutely dreadful uniform?

/”’Does Ozzie love me?’ You sound, to be frank, pitiable.”/

“Shut up.” Ed muttered. There’d been many times like this over the course of a week or so, relentless comments from his psyche starting in full force the first day that they’d put him in his cell. The swift blow to the back of his head reminded him that he wasn’t so alone with his thoughts.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?!” Ed didn’t want to think of how familiar this all was. The rest of the walk down the hall towards the recreation area was accompanied by a disapproving glare and the feeling of vague disappointment within himself. 

It felt like years before he got from the boy’s residential wing to the cafeteria. It was eerily silent; Edward was the first one here. He couldn’t help but view it as a personal attack on him, organized by the same people who said they were ‘here to help’. He supposed that he deserved it, though. The rather sullen looking lunch lady filled a tray with something that could’ve been passed as a mashed up pig stomach, then shoved it in his hands. 

Edward sat down away from where the vats of food were positioned, keeping his back to the door, half to avoid the woman distributing ‘food’ and half to avoid the impending company. He picked at what was on his plate, but as soon as he saw it, he’d already lost his appetite. He could admit that he missed his mother’s cooking, though the thought of his mother stung.

/”Aw….you miss your mommy.”/

The dejected shuffling of feet interrupted Edward’s own torment and others perceived silence. His shoulders tensed, as he was too familiar with the cafeteria camaraderie of the likes of Jim Gordon and his group of detestable jocks. The metal bench all of the sudden felt cold, too cold, the fabric covering his legs a poor substitute for his usual trousers. All of the sudden, he heard a familiar, if muted gait approach behind him.

“Isn’t that the most grody thing you’ve ever tasted?” The biting sound in Oswalds voice stung him, before he realized that it was quite possible that Oswald didn’t recognize him. The prison jumper (he was calling it that now, for that’s what it was.) didn’t hang off of him like his normal shirts and sweaters, and his hair had curled up since he hadn’t been able to properly comb it in days. 

“Yes, in fact, it is.” Edward said, slowly turning around in his seat to face Oswald. He soon saw the shock spread across the other boys face, and it became evident that his earlier hypothesis was correct. He bet to himself that he hardly would’ve recognized Oswald had he not known explicitly that it was him: his eyes were still the same indescribable blue, but his hair lay flat upon his forehead and he looked like he was drowning in the provided clothing, though Oswald still tried to carry himself in as much of a regal manner as possible with a limp. Edward pushed his glasses up his nose as to get a better look at him. “Hello, Ozzie.” He watched as Oswald’s face lit up, and could feel his own smile growing before they were interrupted.

“Oh..so he calls you Ozzie, too?” A young, frighteningly pale man with tally mark scars peaking out of the sleeves of his ill fitting jumpsuit. “I didn’t know that Ozzie here and the new one had..history.” He slung his arm around Oswald, and while Ed was alarmed, Oz just shoved the arm away.

“Oh, cool it, Victor.” At the mention of the name Victor, a bleary eyed boy with already graying hair turned towards them from his spot at the left table, but just put his head back in his hands when he realized that no one was talking to or about him. “Me and Ed...we went to school together. That’s all.”

“You two seemed real happy to see each other…” Before anyone could respond with as much as an indignified squawk, Victor turned on his heels so that he was completely facing Ed. “Victor Zsasz. Hired assassin.” He gave a mock salute, and zipped towards the table where the sleepy looking boy, who also appeared to be named Victor, sat.

“Is he really an assassin?” Edward asked Oswald, almost not wanting to know the answer.

“Does it really matter? He’s got scars to prove it, and that’s good enough for me.” Ed turned back around to see who had sneaked in while he was turned the other way. He could hear Oswald’s foot tapping; he still didn’t like to be interrupted, then. Some things could never change. Edward was met with a girl who seemed to be burned almost everywhere on her body, to the point where one eye was so cloudy that Ed swore that she shouldn’t be able to see out of it. “I’ve got the scars for my story, anyways. I’m Bridgit Pike. I burned my brothers to the ground, and apparently no one believes me when I say that they deserved it!!” Her spike in volume caused everyone to pause for a moment, before continuing on with their little side conversations. “Sorry. I wasn’t always this..abrasive, but things happen. People change. Ed, isn’t it?” She smirked, and Ed wasn’t sure if it was because she wanted to or if she couldn’t smile properly.

“I’m Edward Nygma. I...killed someone.” He said, almost sheepishly. 

“Didn’t we all?” Bridgit said, accompanied by a harsh laugh. “Except for Basil Karlo. He was hit by a car. His brain got all..creamed, and now he’s here. They, whoever they are, are worried that his brain injury could lead to him, well, you know..” 

Edward cast an eye to where Bridgit had gestured. The boy she’d pointed out was the closest one to the food, and he looked normal until he turned into a certain light and revealed a dent on his forehead. There was a girl sitting next him, with curly hair and eyes that looked like they were innocent, but according to Bridgit, no one was really ‘innocent’ in here.

“Who’s the girl beside him?” Ed asked, turning back towards Bridgit. 

“That’s Alice Tetch. Stabbed her brother in his bed. He deserved it, too.” There was a vitriol in her voice that Ed knew he had heard before but couldn’t quite place. “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. There’s this other girl, Ozzie..doesn’t really like her, but she’s got so much pull around here, hell, she can even get-”

“Oh! Eddie. You should eat your food before it gets cold. You’ll get used to the taste.” Oswald said, sitting down beside Ed with a plastered on smile and wolfing down whatever was on their trays with reckless abandon. Edward thought at first that Oswald had gotten tired of not playing his little bantering game and winning, but their was an edge to his voice that sounded quite alarming.

“Okay, I’ll eat whatever’s on-” Before Edward could finish giving up, he heard something, or someone, who almost gave him a heart attack.

“Sorry that I’m late, I had to get my nest all ready..Oh? There’s someone new!”

/”Oh, you know that girl. Funny, isn’t it, how things tend to follow us.”/

Edward didn’t want to turn around. He even ignored the voice in his head He knew that tone and inflection; he knew that exact voice. He dared a glance at Oswald, who was currently completely still, boring his eyes into the metal table. 

Everyone else seemed unperturbed, though, even Bridgit, who appeared to be more exasperated than anything. “There she is. Isabella. First time Oswald saw her, I thought he was going to cut the gas and faint on us!” Bridgit said, laughing with her apparent trademark smirk. Ed was feeling a bit woozy himself. Before he knew it, he was flat on his back, and the last thing he saw before blacking out completely was Kristen’s face.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You guys are gonna be shocked

Edward Nygma woke up in an uncomfortable cot. He blinked to adjust to the harsh fluorescent light, and discovered that he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“Rise and shine, Mr. Nygma” Someone on his right side said, in a hauntingly familiar voice that was much less malicious than the orderly that escorted him out of bed.

“How long have I been..Where am I? Who are you?” Edward said groggily, not able to focus.

“You...had a spell, this morning, in the cafetorium, upon meeting Isabella. It is now about an hour past lunch time, and you’re in the infirmary. As for me? I’m Professor Hugo Strange.” The man said, with a deep voice that didn’t really do much to help Edwards consciousness. That voice. Edward could remember that voice: the...intake specialist, the one with the eerily calm voice that gave him chills running up and down his spine. If this man was just someone who was part of the process of whatever his diagnosis was, then why was this man here?

/”So that’s her name. Pretty.”/

“Your glasses, Mr. Nygma.” A smiling professor Strange handed Edward his glasses, who had, by this time, propped himself up and was sitting in bed. Ed put them on, and could now see a man who looked quite out of his time, a man with literal rose colored lenses in front of his eyes. Though Ed supposed that, in this place, there wasn't much possibility of any sort of positive outlook.

“Thank you..” Edward said, still with a bit of a suspicious air around him. He’d been infuriatingly helpless enough times to know to be wary of tight lipped smiles.

“You’re probably feeling very scared, right now, Mr. Nygma. To tell you the truth, we had a bit of a scare as well.” Professor Strange said, with a furrow in his brow that didn’t quite erase his former grin. Edward didn’t feel scared, but he felt frustrated, a little annoyed, and still very wary of the man at his bedside. The false concern seemed more of a mask than anything. Edward had seen this before: people would only let out enough information so not to expose themselves, but still enough so that the other party was satisfied. In times like these, Ed had used that sort of trick himself; after all, his mother, up to the day he was arrested, had still believed that he and Kristen loved each other. At least, Edward knew that she had tried to. “You had an...adverse reaction to meeting one of your fellow patients. I promise, while a co-ed institution is still somewhat controversial in this day and age, we want to make daily interaction here in Arkham as...normal as possible.”

“Because it’s totally normal to faint upon meeting fellow ‘patients’.” Edward snapped, almost immediately regretting his tone. His guard had been down; even though he’d been aware of it, professor Strange’s deep baritone voice had lulled him into a false sense of security. He’d been lulled into a stupor.

“I know that you are under a lot of stress, but there is no need to take that tone.” That was when the regret truly set in for Edward Nygma. Though there was no audible tell in professor Strange’s voice, in his eyes there was a spark of fury.

Edward didn’t apologize, though. He supposed that there was no need, as the damage had already been done.

~•~

Edward’s infirmary visit didn’t last too long after he’d woken up. He supposed the orderlies had been notified, because a few moments after the abrupt end of his conversation with Strange, two especially brutish ones came and ‘escorted’ him back to his proverbial cell. Strange’s parting words to the orderlies meant he’d spend the rest of the time until dinner and the subsequent recreation hour in said cell.

On his way back, he’d passed the room of the sad boy from earlier who hadn’t spoken much, the one whom Bridgit hadn’t introduced. He still wasn’t really speaking, but he was screaming and crying about someone named Nora, and how her death was all his fault. The one look that Edward got of the boy’s face was one of pure anguish.

/”You know about fault, don’t you.”/

“Shut up.” Edward was alone with his thoughts, which never fared well for him. He did know about fault and blame; that much was true. He just didn’t like to think about how much he was to blame for Kristen’s broken heart, and her tears in that court room. She would get better, she would soon regain purpose, but Tom Dougherty would always be dead.

/”Funny how someone's first could also be someone else's last.”/

“I said, shut up! Stop bugging me!” Edward shouted.

The voice was silent, and now the only sounds he heard were the faint sobs of someone who had apparently killed a girl named Nora.

~•~

Waiting for dinner to arrive was a lot easier than Edward had thought it might have been. The demented voice in his head made no more interruptions, and Edward could easily pretend that he was some powerful gangster waiting to be interrogated. He could plan a strategy of defense that would ensure that the authorities got no information from him about his operation. There was no operation, and all of it was just make-believe to pass the time, but there was one very real thought at the corner of his mind.

Isabella was a mystery. She sounded exactly like Kristen, and looked like her, too. Ed tried to tell himself that her familiar visage was a result of his hazy vision from the fainting spell, but he knew better than that. Edward just couldn’t cool it when it came to her.

That dinner time was his third time being ‘escorted’ by an orderly, and Ed had already figured that he just shouldn’t resist. Any time he jarred himself against the nameless man’s grip, it just hurt him more.

“Why do you have to be so rough?” Ed asked, a last ditch effort to reason with whoever his escort was.

“Strange has you on his ‘dangerous persons’ list. Figured I oughta be careful and protect myself.”

/”Figures.”/

Edward could hear the smirk in the voice, and he laughed a bit. It was all harmless, really, until his escort noticed.

“Who do you think you’re laughing at?” Ed’s daringness to be cheerful earned him a shove into the cement wall. It wasn’t too hard, it might’ve bruised, but it was real enough that Edward realized that he really had to be careful.

~•~

Edward figured that whatever luck he had left was bound to run out. He’d tried to make life work; the little group of Oswald, Bridgit, and him was becoming a fixture within the cafeteria, where they were sometimes joined by Alice Tetch and Basil Karlo, or the two Victors. Never the two duos at the same time, though, and Isabella hadn’t talked to them, not since the incident of Ed’s arrival. Despite the daily harassment by the orderlies, the endless waiting in a room with one small window, and the therapy appointments with Strange where he tried his best to talk about nothing while still saying words, his first week went relatively okay. Despite being in a place where nearly everyone he talked to had committed murder, he felt a demented sense of belonging that he hadn’t previously felt anywhere else. He should’ve known that in a madhouse, things were bound to get cranked.

“I wanted to apologize for the other day. I can’t help but feel as if it was all my fault.” Edward had heard Isabella approaching behind him during the lunch hour that day. He could’ve sworn that she even smelled like Kristen, and it made him want to vomit.

/”Poor thing, about to get sick all over some dolly.”/

Edward ignored the voice in his head and the bile rising in his throat, instead squeezing Oswalds hand under the table. Oswald squeezed right back, then they separated. It had been a planned reassurance, a reminder that they each had someone; they still had to be wary about the prying eyes of orderlies and other patients alike. 

“See, she really is a sweetheart!” Bridgit, oblivious (not that it was her fault, no one knew about Kristen except for Oswald and him), waved with her fingers past Edwards head, and he finally mustered up the courage to turn around and face Isabella to her face, be it both Kristen’s and hers alike. He swung his legs around the edge of the bench, leaving Oswald still facing front.

For a good while before he spoke, Edward was completely tuned out. It was unreal how uncanny Isabella’s appearance was. She looked exactly like Kristen, right down to the bright green color of her eyes. The only exceptions were that she wore blond hair in an updo and didn’t have glasses. Otherwise: Kristen. She was an almost perfect match. At least he didn’t faint when he saw her that time, though he felt like he might. “You really must..not be sorry. I..um..I..” Edward stammered, unsure of what to say.

“Well, you’re one Madison Avenue man, aren’t you, Edward. I hope you don’t mind us not being properly introduced, but I couldn’t help but overhear your name.” Isabella said, a coy smile on her face.

“Not at all...I’ve heard your name in passing as well. Isabella, isn’t it?” Ed was dazed. He had his right hand on the bench, fingers reaching towards Oswald’s right hand for some sort of anchor to the real world, propriety be damned. That was Kristen’s face, but so clearly not Kristen. It was too eerie. It was like seeing someone in a mask, but looking through and seeing yet not really seeing someone or something that was somehow different, but not being able to pin down what exactly the difference was. There were physical differences, like her hair and her eyesight, but those were just parts of a body. Seeing someone else's soul behind eyes that looked so much like Kristen’s was a cause for disquiet in Edward’s mind.

/”She’s very beautiful. Almost looks like someone we know…” A chuckle. A smirk. A wink, even. Whatever got to Edward the most./

Ed dug his nails into Oswalds hand, and there audible hiss of pain trying to be concealed coming from his right side. He turned his head quickly, meeting Oswalds eyes, his own surely filled with pain and regret. “I’m sorry.” Edward said, with all of the emotional energy he could muster. It came out as barely a whisper. “I’m sorry.” He repeated, for lack of anything better to say.

“Eddie, please.” Oswald said, whispering but still sounding so heartfelt. Whatever he didn’t say was conveyed by a profound gaze, as they looked into each other's eyes, if only for a few moments. He wanted to kiss Oswald, and he wanted to tell Oswald that he loved him; Ed couldn’t have done that, not here, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead, he let Oswalds eyes ground him, and then turned his head back towards Isabella, even if it was like looking in some extremely bizarre fun-house mirror.

“I suppose it’s okay you call me Isabella. That is my name, after all.” She giggled without any sound. It looked like she was just smiling and looking down and trying to hide something.

~•~

The ensuing conversation with Isabella felt much like a therapy session, all tense shoulders from every party involved and a lot of talking about nothing at all. Edward felt that it was the perfect segue into the real thing, because after the lunch hour, the orderlies dragged him away before he could say a single goodbye. Strange had summoned him, then.

Edward knew something was wrong before he’d even arrived. For starters, this wasn’t the normal route to his daily sessions with Strange, so he wouldn’t even be arriving to professor Strange’s office at all.

“Where am I going?” Ed dared to ask, and curiosity winning out over the fear any orderly could instill within him.

“Strange has plans.” That was it. Those three words, and not even so much as an extra tug on his arm. Somehow, this did more to dishearten Edward than it did to satisfy his uncertainty about the situation. 

He was led to a room where there were no windows, only metal chairs and some medical looking equipment and a metal table with leather straps that looked like it was meant for an examination. The door was shut with a loud bang behind him, and he jumped. The two orderlies that had escorted him out of the infirmary only a week earlier were standing in the corner, and they smirked at him. Almost in unison. Professor Strange was there, sitting in one of the two metal chairs, looking serenely calm. He was too calm.

/”You know what this looks like…” A sing-song voice drove Edward mad./

“Hello, Edward. I decided that we should try something...new today.” Professor Stranges voice echoed throughout the room, only succeeding in making it sound even more foreboding. Every instinct Ed had was telling him to run, to get out. Even the ones unwelcome were telling him that everything about this room that was secreted away in the back corners of the asylum was wrong, even compared to what could only pass as a prison. Strange must’ve sensed this, because with an almost imperceptible nod that Edward didn’t recognize until it was too late, the orderlies had him pinned on the table and restrained. As soon as they were on him, they stepped back; it was already much too late. He struggled and struggled against the hold of his bonds, but he only succeeded in chafing the skin of his ankles and wrists. Strange stood, removing Edward’s glasses and placing them on the chair beside him. There was something too unsettling about his eyes, and Edward could already feel tears filling his own.

“Don’t cry, Mr. Nygma. This is therapy. It is meant to help you. Now, bite down on this.” Strange placed a wooden object between his teeth. He could hear Strange giving orders on how to prep his so-called ‘therapy’, but he couldn’t make out full sentences, only words. ‘Electrode’. ‘Voltage’. Edward braced himself, expecting something horrible.

This was worse than horrible. He could smell his own flesh burning, and whatever was coursing through his brain made him feel like every nerve ending in his body was on fire and that hot oil was pouring down his face. He screamed around the wooden bar until his throat was raw, hoping against all reason that someone would save him, until he could only sob, hopeless. The pain lasted only a few seconds, but Edward was wrecked. His mind was a haze, but then he heard one word that made his heart drop to his stomach.

“Again.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heyy I know it’s been literally a year but I’m back !!! Shits crazy

Edward Nygma found himself sitting in the front row of a very ornate theater, yet something was off.. He could hear the excitement of the audience, but when he looked around, he couldn’t actually see any of them. The theatre appeared to be empty, with a red glow washing over the stage and the bodiless seats, and a single bright white spotlight illuminating center stage.

Suddenly, the invisible audience became quiet. It was a silence so profound that Edward's ears rang. A horrible feeling of wrongness came over him, and he tried to get up from his seat. He found that he couldn’t; he found that he was stuck.

Oswald Cobblepot took center stage, standing in the spotlight. Oswalds appearance gave a small comfort to an increasingly disquieted Edward, until he saw what was in Oswald’s right hand.

It shone, and it was sharp, and it was nothing like the bloodied, rusted thing that sat in Ed’s closet for so many weeks.

“Everything means something, Ed. Nothing is ever truly meaningless.” His voice filled the room. 

Oswald took the blade and sliced his own neck. Edward tried to cry out, tried to scream in the anguish of a lover, yet he was silenced and still.

“Why did you have to kill me?” Oswald’s mouth moved, and it was Oswald’s voice, but it was also Tom’s, and Kristen’s, and his mother’s, and...his own, his own voice inside his head, a mockery of who he once was. The red glow grew brighter, and Edward became blinded as the voices began to overlap one another in screams and cries and torment. He smelled what could only be the scent of burning flesh...

Edward didn’t remember losing consciousness. He didn’t remember faces twisted in cruelty, mocking him as his own was twisted in agony. He only remembered the pain, and being woken up from a nightmare by the rattling on the lock of his cell. Immediately, Edward began to panic, fearing that they were coming to take him back to that awful room with its awful machine. As the door creaked open, Edward leapt back, crowding against the wall, threadbare coverings wrapped around him as if they would protect him from whatever waking nightmare was about to approach. 

It was Oswald. Oswald Cobblepot, with his hair flatter than it should be, dressed in the dull uniform of Arkham Asylum instead of his lavish suits, seemed to have appeared like Edward’s very own saving grace. His mind tortured him with images of the others neck sliced open, gleaming red and visceral, but it wasn’t in such a way that his own horrors were presented before him. There were no hallucinations, no distractions, no voices, only Oswald. 

Maybe this was peace.

Edward didn’t move from his defensive positions sitting up on his cot, but he also didn’t flinch when Oswald came into the room and sat on the edge of the frame. Slowly, and carefully, as if declaring a truce with some volatile creature (as Ed supposed that his psyche was), Oswald placed his right hand on Edward’s left as it clutched the scratchy blanket. He was soaked in sweat from the night terrors, induced by only god knows what, yet the cool stickiness wasn’t entirely unwelcome, as long as Oswald was there. Edward took his hand in his own, and gave it a squeeze: a reassurance, a reminder.

Maybe this was kindness.

Edward hadn’t heard silence in days. Whether it was the constant questioning by the police or professor strange, the rabble of the other inmates in the common room, or the sound of his own hellish thoughts being spit back at him by some poison of the mind, there were always voices. He has expected any pockets of silence to be deafening in some way that would drive him further to insanity. Oswald’s presence soothed him; the other boy knew that there were words that could be spoken, that there were little comforts that could be offered, but that the earthbound truth was that silence was the answer. Even if he hadn’t done too well in school, even if they would never see the inside of any traditional school walls again, they knew each other’s answers.

Maybe this was love.

~•~

Edward woke up alone, the aching in his body from the stiffness of the mattress and the chill that immediately ran up his spine out of an already ingrained reflex reminding hmof where he was. He hadn’t dreamed when he’d fallen asleep in Oswald’s arms the night before, and he wasn’t even sure that Oswald’s presence in his cell hadn’t been a dream itself.

/”Doesn’t it all feel too real?”/

Edward stood, next to his ed, close enough to, yet far enough from the door so that whichever orderly came to escort him to breakfast wouldn’t think that he was plotting escape. It wasn’t like that type of escape was feasible. Any type of escape, even from himself, was hopeless.

~•~

Edward Nygma sat at the cold metal table with Oswald, Bridgit, Victor, and Victor, eating the same strangely purplish mush that served for breakfast and their afternoon meal that was sometimes lunch and sometimes dinner. Usually, they were given pathetic, flimsy paper cups of water that barely quenched their thirst, but that day, the kindest looking kitchen staff came into the cafeteria itself, mumbled something about budget allocations, and placed a carton of milk in front of each of them. 17 in total, including the five of them, and Isabella, whom Ed tried to ignore. 

The milk carton was the same brand that his mother always packed in his lunch. The milk carton was left unopened; When asked by Bridgit why, he said that his stomach hurt.

It was several moments later that Edward noticed that Basil Karlo and Alice Tetch were missing. He didn’t mention the absence, declining to speak on account of a grief he couldn’t quite place, a grief that seemed everywhere and nowhere at once Normally, he’d take account of everyone's presence as soon as he entered the room, but his nightmare, both waking and sleep, and the subsequent dream-notdream had left him unfocused and groggy. 

“It’s been a subject of debate, but none of us know why Isabella’s even in this place. She’s never come right out and say it.” Bridgit exclaimed, after a lull in the conversation.

“And why are you saying this?” Edward asked, not really seeking an answer, still trying hard to forget that Isabella was even existed. His voice felt scratchy, and he realized that he probably hadn’t spoken for several hours.Just as he thought he was getting used to her presence, the mention of her brought back memories of school, of milkshakes and movies, of the simpler things in life that were impossible.

“Everyone has a theory, Eddie…” Victor Zsasz said in a drawl, sounding like he was bored out of his mind.They all were, but Zsasz’s boredom always seemed to be more apparent, as if he had somewhere to be and couldn’t wait for all of this to be over.

Eddie, as Zsasz and Oswald and most everyone called him, stayed silent. He’d given Isabella’s incarceration a less than a passing thought, and he didn’t want start to think on it too much now.

He didn’t have to. Not two seconds after Zsasz had proclaimed everyone's speculation, Basil Karlo was escorted into the room, with tears in his eyes, and a wretched sound like sobbing coming from is throat. Bridgit stood from the table, but didn’t dare to move any closer to the orderly that had lead Basil in.

The orderly seemed to sense her question before she seemed to as it, and muttered something about a questioning in a decidedly less kind voice than the woman who had given them the milk a few minutes earlier.

From Bridgit, this simple answer prompted an exclamation.

“What was he questioned for? What did he do? What happened?!!” She said, gaining volume with each question. She was ignored by the man who had all but dumped Basil on the other side of Oswald from Edward. In fact, by the time she started speaking, he had already left the room.

Basil began mumbling, inaudibly at first, but before long, Edward, Oswald, Bridgit, Victor, and Victor could make out a name.

Alice.

The color drained from Bridgit’s face. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t need the girl she loved to be dead. No one had come right out and said it, but who would? Alice had been a good person; if anyone would treat anyone with kindness, it was her. No one wanted to believe that Alice Tetch was dead; yet, it was undeniable.

Isabella seemed to notice Bridgit’s extreme distress. Everyone did, but Isabella actually walked over, and offered a comforting look. Bridgit fell into her arms, sobbing, and Isabella embraced her. It was so...Kristen, that it hurt Ed to even look, for all of the wrong reasons.

Edward hardly had time to ponder the reasons that kindness and affection were becoming almost painful, because the orderly, along with several others, marched into the room.

~•~

Isolation. Solitude. Until the whole death, dying, and speculated murder mess was sorted, none of the population was allowed to mix with any of the population; everyone was a suspect.

Small town life never would leave him.

/”Who do you think did it? Everyone has a theory, Eddie…”/

The cruel echo of Zsasz’s sentiments about Isabella seemed to echo through his cell.

“Shut up.” Edward knew his response was useless. His own voice sounded tinny and tiny in comparison to the oppressive voice in his head.

/”Maybe...it was Oswald. He wasn’t in his cell last night. He was with you. Comforting you. Was there blood on his hands? Think, think! Can you even remember?/

Edward, in truth, couldn’t remember much about that night. The only moments of clarity were the nightmare, the fear he felt. Oswald’s presence was just that, a mere presence, more comforting and reassuring than anything else. The days sent in this rotten cell seemed to blur, and isolation would just begin to make it worse.

/”Maybe it was me.”/

Edward felt a haunting chill run down his spine, only comparable to that stormy day so many months ago, when the truth of the matter of the crime was so much clearer, though the rain had been in his eyes and blind lust had clouded his judgement. “That's not possible. You're in my head.” He leaned back onto his bed from where he was sitting on the floor. Over the past few hours, he had tried to find a position that was comfortable. Nothing was comfortable. Nothing was right, not anymore, and it wouldn’t be for a while.

/”Keep telling yourself that. I’m in your head, I’m in your head…. I am your head.”/

There was no love, peace, or kindness in this place. There was only guilt, only sadness, and only pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah..this boy is gonna suffer and I am only a bit sorry


End file.
